


the only north star

by Skyebyrd



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Brief Violence, Journalism, M/M, Marvel Universe, louis becomes spiderman, perceived cheating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 14:52:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18943201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyebyrd/pseuds/Skyebyrd
Summary: A story told in two parts.Part one: Harry meets Louis at NYU and falls immediately and deeply in love, despite Louis’ overbearing boyfriend. Harry interns at the local Daily Bugle as part of the Superhero/Crime Liaison Unit and learns how to study and track superheroes and villains and the damage they inflict on the citizens of NYC. Harry does what he believes to be the right thing. Come the end of the school year, he uncovers more than what he cares to know.Part two: Louis gets bitten, gets sick, and gets strange powers (which come with…strange responsibilities). He has to learn to control them while also helping NYC’s most famous superheroes to fight off NYC’s newest, baddest supervillain. He also has to figure out his slowly detangling relationship with Harry. He only has the summer to save the city, and Harry.





	the only north star

**Author's Note:**

> i recently learned i'm being laid off + my hours for the remainder of my job got doubled soooo part 2 will be coming up when i have time, thanks for understanding. you can subscribe to me to be updated when it gets uploaded :)
> 
> thanks so much to the mods for running this !! i fell asleep and just suck on all levels BUT part 1 is here finally !!!!! 
> 
> this art is given and made with such incredible dedication by the amazing ri !!! love you sooo much, you gave me your all and brought louis to LIFE and idk how to ever give you anything back as good. thanks so much to my betas for helping me with any and all grammar issues and with continuity. 
> 
> thanks so much to my best friend ever naureen. without you this fic wouldnt have been born. i remember telling you about this like, what, four years ago and you staying up with me until 2 am planning the outline? and now this fic is NOTHING like it was but it doesn't matter, you've been here the whole time cheering me on. love you for it. 
> 
> btw, super squad + little mix are my superhero designs. i stole a couple designs from sky high as brief nods and jokes. all others mentioned are in the marvel universe at some point or another. if anyone is familiar with marvel, i took designs and characters from multiple universes and mashed them up in this one bc it's FUN.

{Image description: Louis' bedroom. There are posters on the wall, a dresser, a closet, and a corkboard. The room is messy and the bed unmade. The Spiderman suit is draped haphazardly across the bed.}

 

The day Harry Styles meets Louis Tomlinson he ends up late to his job interview. 

It’s a week before classes start; the August heat is burning over New York City’s pavement and glancing off the glass of every building, making it seem ten degrees hotter than it already is. And, look, don’t get Harry wrong, he’s used to the heat. Growing up in Georgia he’s gotten used to sitting outside all summer long with a cold glass of lemonade in one hand and his camera in the other, taking pictures of the sun filtering through the leaves of the elm in his backyard. 

That was a lot more quiet than right now. He’s been in the city two weeks already, wanting to come early to get settled in his new apartment, get all his finances in order, get everything unpacked, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the sheer level of sound happening on every corner. Two years at DeVry taught him a lot but if he wants to get anywhere in journalism he has to go where the action is, and in this day and age, that action is in the heart of the Big Apple. 

Or, rather, the action is wherever the superheroes were. Which is mainly NYC, but there have been some crop ups in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and DC. NYC has the highest concentration of supers and mutants per capita and thus has the leading journalism unit on studying the damage done by superheroes and supervillains. If Harry wanted to go anywhere in investigative journalism, he had to get into the Superhero/Crime Liaison Unit, SCLU for short. Scloo. Harry couldn’t decide if saying Scloo would make more sense or spelling out the acronym; anytime someone says it on TV they use the full unit name and Harry doesn’t wanna seem like an ass on his first day so he’s been practicing both and trying to figure out which sounds more appealing. Scloo. SCLU.  

So Harry’s waiting in line at Coffee Bean, the coffee shop he’s been to a few times since moving to the city. It’s very cozy and blocks the noise and general loud ambience of the city outside so it’s perfect for Harry to come in and do research and practice for his interview. He’s got his nice new cream dress pants on, some formal shoes, a respectable (for once) button-up top with all but the top button done, and a backpack which contains his camera, laptop, and resume. There’s a man in a large, comfortable chair on his phone, talking about stock in Japan, and there’s a student nurse studying at a table nearby. That’s why Harry loves it here -- it’s never crowded, no matter what time of day. There’s only two people in front of him and he has 45 minutes until his interview so he isn’t sweating about being late, but there is also only one person working this morning, bless their heart. 

Until, of course, a boy walks in from the back, tying an apron around his waist and slapping his hat onto his head in a hurry. A woman in line behind Harry makes a rude comment about being late for work and Harry only barely resists rolling his eyes.

“Sorry, sorry, Pez, I know I said I’d be here by --” 

“No, it’s fine, thanks for being able to cover for Jesy. I know you don’t usually work mornings. Can you take over this pour-over for me so I can take the next order?” 

“You got it.” 

He’s  _ stunning _ . Harry feels like he’s lost all the breath in his body just from looking at him. The boy’s got an almost-healed black eye from who knows where, but he’s mousy and small, his body all compact and curves. Even from underneath his hat Harry can tell the boy has gorgeous and soft brown hair. 

Harry can’t stop staring, enough that the girl on register has to get his attention by waving her arm in front of him.

“Sir? Were you ready to order?” Her blonde hair poofs out from under her hat in big curls and Harry wishes for a brief moment his own curls could look so sophisticated. He can see on her nametag her name is Perrie and she looks like a pixie. 

“Uh, yes, thanks.” He orders the first thing he sees on the menu, distracted and trying to look at the boy behind the tall espresso machine. He doesn’t even think he ordered coffee. 

“You’re sure that’s what you want?” She asks, looking at him a bit funny for a moment, and he snaps his eyes back to her. She grins and looks at the boy. 

“Louis,” she says, and it’s almost a breath of relief to Harry to know his name, “make this one special, yeah?” 

The boy, Louis, looks over and gives Perrie a weird look. Harry gets the distinct feeling he’s being made fun of and he’s about to get something nasty in his drink. 

“That’ll be five twenty-five,” she says, and Harry hands over a ten. Perrie hands back his change and he moves over to the pick up counter where Louis is throwing a tea bag into a cup and -- fuck, is he putting espresso overtop? This is going to be disgusting and the worst part is Harry doesn’t know if that’s the “special” request Perrie made or if that’s just the drink he ordered. Louis puts scalding hot water over top, pumps in a quite frankly ridiculous amount of liquid sugar and milk, and puts a lid on it. 

“One elderflower teaspresso for…” Louis looks on the side of the cup, clearly looking for a name. 

“Harry.” Louis looks up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time. “That’s, uh, that’s mine.” 

Louis smirks. “Yeah, man, I don’t think you’re going to like it to be fully honest. Most people don’t. Take a sip and if you don’t like it I’ll grab you something else.” Louis sets the drink on the counter and leans against it, ignoring the order Perrie calls out to him. He pops his hip out behind him and if Harry wasn’t in public and polite he’d be tempted to peek, but he was raised with manners, so he abstains. Harry grabs the cup, the heat seeping through the cardboard and warming his hands, and takes a sip. 

It takes all of his energy to not spit it out of his mouth immediately. It’s absolutely vile, all the floral herbs from the tea and elderflower sugar mixing with the harsh roast of the coffee. Louis takes one look at the sour expression on Harry’s face and laughs. 

“How’s about I get you a regular coffee?” Louis turns around and immediately sets about making a large iced coffee with cream and three sugars -- regular sugar, not liquid sugar which is normally what goes into drinks. 

And that’s -- well, that Harry’s usual coffee order. He gets it every time he comes here, and he got it back home all the time as well. Harry furrows his brow. Surely he would’ve noticed him before if Louis was working at the same time that Harry ordered. He makes it a point to look at and thank anyone making him food or drinks, so for him to not recognize Louis is very out of character for him. 

“This is my go-to, I drink it every time I clock in,” Louis says, getting a big metal spoon and stirring it all together before popping a lid onto the cup. “I prefer regular sugar to liquid because liquid is way too sweet for me but let me know.”

Harry is silent for a moment, still holding onto the elderflower teaspresso. 

Louis sees him still holding onto the drink and gives him a confused look. “Sorry, did you want to keep that? You really don’t have to if you don’t like it, you can just toss it in the trash can.” Harry doesn’t go to do that and Louis seems to realize Harry’s staring at the iced coffee. “Um, did you not want an iced coffee? I can--” 

Harry finally realizes he needs to fucking  _ talk _ or Louis’ gonna think he’s crazy. 

“Sorry, sorry, uh, yeah, I do want that. I was just -- I don’t know, that’s my usual coffee order. What you just made. I always like regular sugar instead of liquid because it makes it, like  --”

“Crunchy.”

It’s said in unison, the both of them. It makes Harry a little dazed, to be honest.

“Yeah,” Harry says, a bit dreamy. He tries to come back to the moment, the man in front of him, but Louis’ already talking. 

“So we have the same iced coffee order?” Louis asks and all Harry can do is nod. It’s like kismet. “How weird. I like the crunch but honestly it’s because working here makes regular iced coffee seem so boring after a while. You end up experimenting.” Louis shrugs a bit and sets the iced coffee down on the counter for Harry to take, which he still doesn’t do. 

Harry can’t help but notice the now four people waiting for their drinks in line behind him. But, Louis is paying such close attention to Harry and things like this never happen to him. Ever.

He takes a deep breath. Now or never.

“And I was trying to think if I’d ever seen you here before but,” at this, Harry blushes, not used to putting himself out there, “I think I’d remember you if I had.” 

The woman on her phone behind him huffs out something like “Flirting on the job, of course,” but Louis ignores it. 

Louis looks pleased with what Harry’s said, though, regardless of any annoyed customers. “A man of taste.” He quirks an eyebrow at Harry and licks his lips before smiling and taking a deep breath. “If you don’t mind, we could hang out sometime. I could give you my number?” 

Harry’s wondering when his life became a romantic comedy when a car gets thrown into the front windows of the coffee shop. 

It’s almost like time is magnified for the next minute. Sounds are both muffled and sharp; the scream of the woman next to him is quiet but the glass travel mug in her hand that she drops sounds like a bomb going off. Harry had also dropped the stupid fucking elderflower teaspresso he’d still been holding onto and it gets all over his brand new shoes and dress pants. The glass explodes inwards at an incredible force and Harry can feel a piece strike against his shoulder, cutting him. The stock market guy has a piece of glass embedded in his leg.

The ringing in his ears fade and sound slowly shuffles back into understanding. He can hear the man yelling in pain, yes, but there’s also Louis next to him, asking if he’s okay. Harry needs to go see what’s outside. He’s been in the city for two weeks now and has yet to see any action. This is what his job’s supposed to be like. He takes stock of the shop around him. 

Nobody was walking in at the time, nor was anyone next to the windows, so nobody is incredibly hurt. The man with the glass in his leg is being looked after by the student nurse. Everyone is conscious and breathing and nobody has any life-worrying injuries. The man may or may not be able to use his leg within the next few weeks but he’s certainly not in any danger of dying, so Harry looks towards the entrance. 

The car is on its side, wheels facing out towards the street, the hood inside the cafe. There’s nobody in the car, thank God, but the airbags are deployed. The door to the cafe is obliterated, the windows destroyed, but Harry climbs out the window with only a small cut to his hand. 

“Harry!” Louis calls out to him. “You fuckin’ moron, you’ll get vaporized or some shit! Stay inside!” 

“I -- I have to film it, I --” Harry waves to him in response, trying to get out quickly. He’s effectively ignoring him, which he knows is rude, but, Jesus Christ he’s got a great opportunity here. He goes towards the door. 

“You fuckin’ tourists are all the same, it’s not worth it! Catch the news later!”

But Harry runs down the street, following the trail of debris and destruction. 

As he goes, there are people hiding behind cars, in alleyways, ducking into whatever doorway they can manage. There’s nobody on the streets right now in downtown New York City. As Harry moves down the sidewalk he slings his backpack around and unzips it quickly. He grabs his camera out of his bag and starts recording everything he comes upon; the abandoned stroller in the middle of the road, the downed power line a block up, a knocked over trash can. 

There’s an explosion the next street over and Harry rushes to get over there. When he crosses the street and rounds the corner of the building, he stops dead in his tracks. 

If only his momma could see him now. 

Electro is in the flesh about six blocks down to his right, a huge arc racing from his fingertips into the building next to him. There’s a blur next to him, what appears to be some kind of deer or antelope running between abandoned cars, until it leaps up and shifts into a giant pteranodon, its beak snapping at Electro’s hands and it’s wingspan sending gusts of air across the street, fluttering discarded trash. 

Electro changes his tune then, refocusing the arcs of electricity from the buildings around him to the shifter in front of him. The hairs on Harry’s arms raise up and static makes his clothes cling to him and his camera whirs like crazy trying to find something to focus on. Harry trains it on Electro, zooming in to watch his hands move all around him, casting electrical currents around him in waves. God, it’s like a fucking movie, and Harry’s stood right here, watching it happen in front of his eyes. Electro’s glowing blue skin is almost iridescent in the morning light, his rubber black suit doing its best to not kill its owner. 

Harry recalls back to when Electro and Daredevil first fought in Manhattan. It had been all over the news, how Electro targeted the Fantastic Four’s headquarters for Dr. Doom and how Daredevil of all people was the one to end up defending it. It was a massive blow to Electro and he’d gone into hiding ever since; until now, that is. 

So why, exactly, is some new, hotshot super trying to take him down?

Harry feels like he vaguely recognizes this one. The pteranodon lands on the ground and shifts into a person, a man, if Harry’s memory is right, wearing a skintight green suit with scales all over it. His name was just one word, nothing complicated, but Harry can’t remember it for the life of him right now. He does remember that this one works in a group -- Super Squad, according to the one member of theirs that will talk to the media, Cyber. It’s a stupid group name, like something a group of kids high off their asses would come up with. Hell, maybe they were. 

A huge soundwave comes from behind him, knocking him off his feet and shattering every window around him; the wave carries down the street, as well, the shifter taking flight just before it reaches him and leaving the brunt of the attack to fell Electro. That’d be Boom, then. Harry remembers him very well, remembers studying all of the cases this month alone where he’s caused hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars in damage to the city. He doesn’t have a lot to offer in terms of close range attacks other than whatever mixed martial arts training he can get himself, and the only long range attack he has is his sonic boom -- a large swelling of sound coming straight from his throat that fills whatever area he’s in and inflicts maximum damage. 

It also ruptures Harry’s eardrum, too, but he’ll have to ignore that for now. Harry quickly tries to stand, dizzy from being knocked over and his eardrum being blown out causing his sense of balance to effectively clock out, and he grabs his camera, training it on Electro again. 

“Animal!” Boom calls out, and, yeah, their names are definitely something drunk frat guys came up with. The shifter, Animal, lands again and says something Harry can’t hear this far away, but whatever it is causes Boom to let another wave loose even though Electro’s off his feet and the electricity has stopped. Isn’t now the time to apprehend? What are they trying to do, kill him?  

All Harry can do is watch as they descend.

* * *

 

“So, Mr. Styles, you said you have footage of the fight, yes?” 

He can’t believe he’s sitting here right now. J. Jonah Jameson’s plaque is  _ right there _ on the wall. He could be in this building at this very moment.

He made it to his interview about forty minutes late. They weren’t all that surprised, nor were they bothered; the SCLU (pronounced using the acronym, not phonetically) had to be on-site for Electro’s arrest, anyways. Electro had needed immediate hospital care, the Mutant Hospital Association taking him away to some special care unit. Harry could only imagine how many specialized areas there are for mutant hospital care. A need for zero-G chambers, sound proof chambers, bulletproof chambers, shatter proof, fuck, everything proof, if Phoenix back in the 80s is any example. 

“I do, yes, my camera’s not as, y’know, high quality as y’alls are, but yes. Yes.” Harry’s definitely too excited to be here and it’s showing, but the woman interviewing him gives him an indulgent smile. He shifts around excitedly, grabbing his backpack from underneath his chair. There are some blood stains on his chin and back, his hand stings like shit, he can’t hear out of his right ear, but fuck, he’s  _ here _ . At the  _ Bugle _ . 

“That’s pretty good work, kid. Shows some real dedication to what we do here at the  _ Daily Bugle _ .” 

Her name is Maggie Lorca and she’s the team’s editor in chief. She’s pretty short but incredibly imposing in her sharp blazer and running shoes -- not heels -- Harry’s surprised to notice. He likes to see that, honestly. Not that there’s anything wrong with heels, whether the woman actually likes them or is just trying to avoid ridicule for not wearing them, no, not the point he’s making. Just seeing her in running shoes means she’s in it for the story. She’s dedicated. She’ll stop at nothing once the opportunity to break or cover a story comes up. She needs those shoes to do her job as perfectly as possible.

Harry’s the same. He risked his own life just for some shitty footage today. 

She plugs the camera into her computer and watches the video, start to finish, right in front of him. His right leg won’t stop bouncing up and down from nerves. She doesn’t comment the entire time, and it’s not like the video’s short, either, it’s twenty fucking minutes of Harry following Electro, Animal, and Boom around the city as they destroy every building they come in contact with. When it’s over, she messes around with the scrub bar, forwarding and reversing and rewatching parts a few times. She turns to him when she’s finished. 

“Do you know how many applicants we get at the SCLU every year when our student internship opens up, Harry?” She asks, folding her hands on her desk. 

Harry shakes his head. 

“A lot, presumably. Hundreds.” 

“Try thousands,” she smirks. “This year alone we received 5,626 applications from all over the world. We have to narrow that down, obviously, to students attending NYU as this is a partnership with them. We then narrow it down to majors, as this is a program exclusively for journalism majors. That still left us with over a thousand applications. We then had to read every essay from that pile and select only a hundred applicants whom we wanted to interview.” She turns her computer back around, showing where the video is stopped, a frame of Electro centered on the screen, bursts of electricity around him like some angel of death. 

“You are interview number 86.” She points to Electro on the screen. “And no one I have ever interviewed, this year or otherwise, has ever showed the guts you did today. Half of the interviewees I talk with don’t even own their own camera. But you, you show exactly what it takes to be a member of the SCLU. You’ve got chutzpah, kid, and I love that.” She stands up, extending her hand for a shake, and Harry quickly moves to follow and grabs her hand probably a bit too vigorously. 

“We’ve still got a few interviews to go, obviously, but I highly doubt we’ll find anyone like you, Harry. We’ll be in contact shortly. Your number still the same as the one on your application?” She asks, unplugging his camera from her computer and handing it over. 

He nods. “Yes ma’am, nothing’s changed. Email’s the same, too, if you need that.” 

“Will do.” She smiles at him. “And congratulations.” 

Harry just barely stops himself from shouting in joy, maybe doing a celebratory twirl or two. 

“Thank you, ma’am, I greatly appreciate it.” 

* * *

Harry gets the confirmation call a week later, right in the middle of helping his new roommate move in. Harry had posted an ad on Craigslist when he put a down payment on the apartment a few months back and did a few interviews over the phone; Nick is going into his senior year and is gay and doesn’t do any hard drugs, so he seemed like a good fit. Plus he had a steady job at a local radio station so Harry knew he’d be good for rent money. They’ve been talking since the beginning of summer and it seems like they’re already best friends. 

When Nick hears the news of Harry finally getting the internship he wanted, Nick suggests going out to celebrate. 

“Come on, H, I know a really great club near here we could hit, get some drinks, get some guys,” At this last part, Nick waggles his eyebrows obnoxiously and digs his elbow into Harry’s side, making Harry laugh, “it’ll be a great time. I’ll even buy first round. We could invite some friends.” 

Harry’s laughter tunes down a bit. 

“I don’t know, Nick, we need to finish moving your stuff in. And school starts Monday, I need to make sure all my textbooks are in, and--”

“Come on, it’s one night, H! You’ll have all weekend for that.”

“I don’t even know anyone here, though. Just moved here a few weeks ago. No friends here yet.” Harry can tell he’s grasping at straws here. He wants to go but the guilt of not being prepared is hard to swallow. 

Nick grins. “Perfect. I’ll bring some of mine.” 

And that’s how Harry ends up in Hardware, sticky with spilled drinks and hazy with alcohol. He’s got a lemondrop in his hands that he decidedly did not buy himself and has no idea where it came from, and he’s trying to make his way over to where he last saw Nick because he’s exhausted and ready to go home. Even if Nick wants to hook up with someone, Harry would like to let Nick know he’s leaving. 

Of course, because he’s had Bambi legs since the day he learned to walk, he ends up spilling the mystery lemondrop all over the back of someone. The man turns around and Harry sees --

It’s gotta be the lights. Harry’s drunk. Harry’s exhausted, he’s had a long day. 

But then -- no. It happens again. There is something black peeking up from this guy’s eyelids and over his right pupil, covering his angry, pissed off eyes. 

Harry barely dodges the punch tossed his way, dropping the glass on the floor. He’s lucky it doesn’t shatter and instead rolls off into the mass of dancers. 

“Sorry, man, holy shit!” 

“Are you tryin’ to fight me, you little bitch?”

“Mason, would you calm the fuck down for one night!” 

It’s a lot for Harry to take in all at once. 

“It was an accident, dude, sorry.” Harry backs up and away from the guy, Mason, apparently. He’s gotta be a mutant with his beefed out arms and -- whatever was going on with his eyes, so Harry needs some distance. Although, distance doesn’t always guarantee safety with pissed off mutants. “I don’t wanna start anything.” 

Mason’s a tall guy, which is saying something for Harry. He’s some kind of weight lifter, swollen muscles all over his body, blond hair shorn around the sides of his head and length on the top. He’s got his dark brows furrowed, his mouth twisted. 

“Mason, chill the fuck out. You spilled your own ass drink on me earlier and I didn’t say anything, did I? Accidents happen.” 

Harry looks to the guy that had been with Mason, and, fuck.  _ Fuck _ . 

Louis from the coffee shop. 

Harry’s gone back to the coffee shop every morning in hopes of seeing Louis again, but he hasn’t. And Harry must be particularly sloshed because he actually acknowledges he knows him when clearly Louis has a boyfriend with a rage complex. 

“Louis? I haven’t see you at the coffee shop in ages!” 

Louis looks over to him, a look of surprise over his face like he hadn’t even looked at Harry once during this whole ordeal, focused on calming Mason down. 

“I thought you died, dude! You just fucking left in the middle of everything and never came back. I assumed the worst.” Louis laughs a little and Mason looks very confused. 

“You know him?” Mason asks, and it’s definitely too loud and crowded on the dance floor to be having a conversation like this. 

“From the cafe. He was that guy that went to go watch the superhero fight, remember, I told you about him?” Louis says as he starts pulling Mason off the floor. Harry isn’t sure if he should follow; he was so interested in Louis but he’s clearly got a boyfriend. And if Mason’s not a boyfriend he is at the very least someone that was grinding up on Louis in the middle of one of NYC’s most prolific gay clubs. Harry doesn’t know if he can step in between that. 

Until, of course, Louis looks back at him. Without the impending threat of Death By Mason, Harry allows himself to look right back. Louis’ wearing this sheer white shirt, and, fuck, it’s cropped. He’s got on some light wash ripped jeans and he looks straight out of a 90s catalogue, like some model. Harry wants to press kisses to his stomach, make it bruised and pretty. 

Louis waves him over and Harry follows without question. 

Following Louis into anything and everything quickly becomes a habit Harry doesn’t ever want to lose. 

They make it over to the bar area and Mason asks for a whiskey, neat. Louis asks for a mojito. Harry asks for a water. He doesn’t need any more fucking alcohol. 

It’s only marginally quieter over here, away from the music, but it’s better for conversation. 

“So, where are you from?” Mason asks, almost sarcastically. Harry wonders why he’s even bothering to ask, excepting the fact that this is a trick question. Louis’ currently distracted with talking to the bartender about something or other. 

“Georgia.” Harry replies. “Just moved here shy of a month ago.”

As expected, Mason chuckles and sips on his whiskey. “Fuckin’ course you did. Tourists always think the superheroes are amazing. Always want pictures and autographs, always get so starstruck, like they don’t wreck the city on a daily basis.” Mason takes another sip. “Fuckin’ muties.” 

Harry is stunned into silence. So maybe Mason isn’t a mutant after all. Maybe it was the lights. 

“Well, first of all,” Harry begins after a moment, “that’s a disgusting word and I’d rather you not use language like that around me. They can’t help bein’ what they are anymore than you can,  _ dude _ .” 

Louis tunes back into the conversation at this point, obviously clued into the tension. 

“Second of all, I took the video because I was interviewing for an internship at the  _ Daily Bugle _ with the SCLU. To, y’know, keep track of how ‘they’ wreck the city on a daily basis.” 

Mason doesn’t reply, just finishes off his whiskey and motions for another. 

“That’s so exciting Harry!” Louis says, and Harry can tell it’s fake enthusiasm, but at least Louis puts on an effort. “Mason here works for the  _ Daily Globe _ as a crime reporter, don’t you, Mason?” 

Mason just nods and it’s obvious he’s exxed out of the conversation.  

“Did you show them the video you took? I hope it was worth it, man, since you could’ve  _ died _ .” Louis makes his point by swinging his drink around and sipping some from the straw. The little mint leaves on top fly off the drink and land on the floor and he is so, so cute. Harry wants to kiss him but -- well. 

“Yeah, I did show them. The woman interviewing me was really impressed. I, uh, just got the confirmation call this morning, actually, that’s why I’m here today.” Harry smiles, a bit bashful.  

Louis smiles back, much more genuine this time. 

“That’s amazing.” Louis takes another sip, and honestly, the way he drinks out of that tiny little straw is so much sweeter than it should be. “Does it pay well?” 

“It does, actually. It guarantees a job at the _ Bugle _ at the end of the internship, too, unless, like, I massively manage to fuck everything up. I’m really excited to begin. It starts when school does.” 

This peaks Louis’ interest. 

“Oh? Where do you go?” 

“Can we go home, Louis? I’m tired,” Mason chimes in, surely tired because his boyfriend has been talking to Harry for so long. And, like, shit, if they’ve been together long enough to move in together, they’re serious. 

“NYU.” Harry answers before Louis can get distracted. Harry sees how Mason’s hand tightens around his whiskey glass. 

“Oh, goody,” Mason says sarcastically, rolling his eyes and getting off the stool. “We’re going. Louis, come on.” Mason walks away without even turning to check to see if Louis is following. What a massive fucking asshole. 

Louis scoffs and takes a long gulp of his mojito, forgoing the cute straw. 

“We both attend NYU, too. He’s doing his post-grad right now, I’m in my senior year. I need your number so we can hang out.” 

Harry’s acutely reminded of the last time Louis asked to hang out. He’d thought it was in a much different context, but alas. Clearly Harry’s meant to strike out before finding his first New York romance. 

Harry gives his number over and Louis leaves. Harry hopes he sees him again. He doubts he’ll ever forget a face like that in his entire life. 

* * *

It’s three weeks into the fall semester when Harry gets a text from an unknown number. He’s just gotten home from his last lecture of the day, three papers and an assignment from the SCLU requiring his immediate attention. But he thinks he can make an exception for this.

_ hey this is harry right? crazy guy w a hard on for superhero fights? _

Harry chuckles. He both is and isn’t surprised it took this long for Louis to text. With a boyfriend like Mason he’s sure Louis felt weird talking to him at all. 

_ Yes it is. And it’s more like, a cultural appreciation. We don’t get this down south.  _

Harry quickly saves Louis’ contact information

_ ah, yes, mr. cowboy.  _

_ Just because I grew up on a ranch doesn’t make me a cowboy.  _

_ does that mean you know OTHER cowboys??? _

_ Maybe. My cousin may or may not have been reigning junior bull-riding champion in the seventh grade.  _

_ holy shit i love this. ur such a fuckin farmer.  _

Harry rolls his eyes. Louis talks to him like they’ve known each other forever, and it’s not hard to talk to him right back the same way. 

_ Okay, on to better topics... not that I don’t love hearing from you but is there any reason in particular you reached out today? _

_ oh yeah!! okay so im in this english class its like the last gen ed i need to graduate. and i dont want you to feel like im only talking to you bc i need help bc i do wanna hang out but ive been BUSY with school starting and work. im sure youre just as busy w ur internship and school but id appreciate it a lot if you could help tutor me. I could get u free coffee at coffee bean too whenever you’re in but im only there to close :/ _

Louis is definitely one to ramble and Harry finds it so incredibly endearing. He wants to take Louis out to dinner, show him a good time, but, no. Mason. Off limits. 

_ I’d love to help, Louis. Are you busy later this Saturday afternoon? I meet with the SCLU at 8 but those meetings last hours and hours to try to make the Sunday edition. Could do about 3 or 4? What class specifically is this for? _

This time the response isn’t immediate. At 7:02 Harry’s phone chimes while he’s in the middle of typing up the latest damage report incurred by Fankaar and Rhino’s fight in Queens two days before. There had been two apartment buildings smashed through as well as a long-standing bodega that the neighbourhood has rallied behind and set up a GoFundMe to help rebuild. The owner, Cesar Escobar whose parents had come from El Salvador in the 30s and opened up the shop, had agreed to do an interview with him the next morning over the phone about the impact he has experienced himself and how he sees New York City and how it’s changed since he was a child. 

_ hey sorry was in lab for physiology. were learning abt arachnids now. EW. anyways its actually like the basic intro english lit class thats required of everyone to graduate here lol i just always pushed it off. english 101. we’re studying poetry rn. _

_ Sounds good. I like poetry. Fair warning, my studies mainly focus on nonfiction writing.  _

_ yeah i figured thats fine idc. just need someone who at least kinda knows whats going on bc im way lost lmao. anywaysssss saturday works great i can do 3 or 4, whichever ends up happening that day. did u wanna meet at the library ?  _

He bites his lip. He’s usually hungry after the meetings and that doesn’t leave him much time to grab something to eat. The  _ Daily Bugle _ is in Murray Hill and while it’s not incredibly far from campus it’s too far to grab something on the way and make it on time. However, there is another option. 

_ Actually, could we grab food? There’s an amazing diner I’ve heard a lot about and want to try.  _

_ yes!!!!! would love to. just send me the deets, ill see you there.  _

* * *

Saturday morning finds Harry carrying five coffees into the  _ Daily Bugle _ . Leigh-Anne, who is in his humanities class, had been working that morning and when Harry enquired after Louis, she mentioned Louis almost exclusively comes in at six every other night to close up shop. The coffee shop is near campus so it runs until 1:00 AM and opens at 5:00 AM to take advantage of students’ weird studying hours.  

He’s got a café au lait, a soymilk mocha frappé, a regular black coffee, an americano, and his own iced coffee. There are more people employed at the SCLU but not all of them want coffee and some of them just get their own on their way in. So, Harry picks up what he can carry. He gets a company card to put it all on which makes him feel incredibly businessman-like. Like, it’s almost too adult for Harry to handle it. He’s also allowed to use the company card to pay for taxis and such to get somewhere the action is happening as fast as possible. 

God bless the Yellow Cab Company for not giving two shits about destination hazards. 

Harry walks into the  _ Daily Bugle’s _ main lobby and stops dead in his tracks because there, right in front of him, is J. Jonah Jameson himself, talking to illustrious, world-renowned businessman Wilson Fisk. Fisk is larger than life; he seems to take up the entire lobby with his form, like everyone around him is an ant he can step on and squash at any moment. The amount of money this man is rolling in would fill up this building top to bottom ten times over in thousand dollar bills. Harry has his own personal issues with billionaires but Fisk is like if Jeff Bezos owned three Amazons, he’s got that  _ much _ money. And unlike Bezos, Fisk actually donates as much of it as he can. He gives a lot to NYC homeless shelters, local businesses, local papers like the  _ Bugle _ and the  _ Globe _ , and to each and every school in NYC imaginable. He essentially funds the city. 

Harry feels like Fisk is about to take advantage of those generous donations he gives every year. 

Jameson sees Harry walk in and waves him over. Harry takes a deep, calming breath, and goes over, checking the clock to make sure he won’t be late for the SCLU meeting. Fuck, even if he was, he’ll just have to tell them Jameson asked to speak with him. Jameson owns the whole paper, it isn’t like Harry can tell him no. Jameson writes his fucking checks. Well, his secretary does. Anyways. 

“Hey, kid, you’re that new intern for scloo, right?” 

It’s almost hilarious in that moment, hearing Jameson say something so confidently when it’s so utterly, completely wrong. Harry barely refrains from laughing at the way Jameson pronounces SCLU, but he maintains his demeanor. 

“Yes, sir, I am. From NYU. I got posted for Manhattan but they’re still thinking of having me cover Queens.” 

Jameson just shakes his head and waggles his hand around arbitrarily like what Harry’s saying doesn’t matter. And maybe, to him, it doesn’t. 

“I don’t care what scloo’s got you doin’, kid. I want you to listen to Mr. Fisk here and he’ll be giving you your assignments. Work on Fisk’s stuff first and make it your top priority. You can do other stuff for scloo but Fisk’s assignment is top stuff, you hear me? Top stuff.” 

Harry turns to Fisk and just barely resists the urge to step back to take in all of him. He’s like a mountain. 

“I want you to work on uncovering the identities of that new group of heroes, Super Squad.” It sounds like a joke coming from Fisk’s mouth, his deep timbre echoing the ridiculous phrase ‘super squad’ into the entire lobby like it’s something meaningful and important, and not just a group of college kids trying to do important things. 

However, it gives Harry pause. 

“Find out their identities?” Harry’s eyebrows scrunch together. “May I ask why?”

“Why?” Jameson yells out, catching Harry off guard. Some coffee spills out of one of the cups and splashes on Harry’s nice new shoes. He only takes a second to be grateful it didn’t spill on Fisk’s probably million dollar shoes. “You’re doing it because you’re told to! Because those fucking brats are ruining New York City each and every day and it costs Fisk millions of dollars to do all those repairs. They need to be held accountable for their crimes.”

Harry nods. “I agree they’re doing damage, sir, but they’re only reacting to villains trying to do even more damage. Wouldn’t it be more worth the time to find out the bad guy’s plans in advance and try to stop them so the heroes don’t have to step in?” 

All Fisk does is smile. He places one of his huge, huge hands on Harry’s shoulder and the weight of it is almost painful. Perhaps it’s the grip. 

“I trust you to do the right thing.” Is all Fisk says before he leaves. Jameson just gives him a look of annoyance and leaves as well with a “Do the job, kid,” and Harry gets the very, very distinct impression he’s just been threatened.

* * *

 

When 3:15 rolls around, it finds Harry standing outside Mickey’s Diner and trying to see if Louis’ already inside of not. Harry said they’d meet at 3:00 but he ran late and missed the train so he had to catch a cab to get there on time, and, well, look where that landed him. He should’ve just waited for the next train. 

Regardless, he’s here now, new research assignments tucked into his SCLU folder and his permanent assignment from Fisk tucked inside his conscience. He’s still not sure how to feel about it. But, he takes a deep breath in, lets it out, and walks inside, the bell on the door chiming his entrance. 

Harry’s greeted by the hostess who’s currently pouring coffee out for someone at a table down to his right, a quick “I’ll seat you in a second, babes!” tossed his way. Harry waves to her and then hears a “Harry, over here.”

He turns to his left and there’s Louis, seated at a booth with his backpack next to him, a few textbooks and papers strewn across the table. Harry smiles at him and walks over. 

“I got here just a couple minutes ago, you’re not really very late,” Louis says, and Harry’s struck by how sweet that is, that Louis immediately wants to make Harry comfortable. “I already ordered some food because I figured we were gonna be here a while.” 

“All good. Meeting just ran a bit over and then I missed the train and then the cab took forever to get over here.” Harry slings his own backpack into the booth and slides into the seat, taking one of the books Louis has in front of him. 

“Yeah, well, that’s New York for you.” Louis says as Harry takes in the title. 

_ On the Origin of the Species  _

“Charles Darwin?” Harry asks, a bit curious. “Just a spot of light reading, then?” 

Louis laughs lightly. “Yeah, that’s me.” He sets his pencil down and rummages through his papers for a moment, and then, “We’re studying evolutionary processes and morphology and shit right now in my ana/phys class. I’ve always loved Darwin so I’m rereading while we study.” 

“You’ve ‘always loved Darwin’?” Harry is definitely surprised by this. Louis doesn’t seem the nerdy type. Granted, Harry doesn’t know him very well, but still. He’s currently got on a soccer jersey and ripped up jeans, and Harry definitely remembers that crop top and Converse combo he had on at Hardware. Definitely doesn’t seem too nerdy. 

“Don’t make fun!” Louis teases. “Darwin made incredible strides in science and laid down the foundation of modern life sciences as we know them. He’s the father of modern biology!” Louis slams a hand down on  _ On the Origin of the Species _ and slides it back to his own side of the table, away from Harry. “I shan't allow you to damage such an important artifact of history.” 

“It looks like you bought that at Barnes & Noble.” 

Louis sniffs his nose, with all the dramatics and flair of a theatre student. 

“That’s neither here nor there. Now, will you help me with my English class or not?” Louis stuffs Darwin’s book into his backpack and pulls out a thick textbook that definitely looks like it has been heavily used by prior students. There’s a notebook tucked beneath the front cover, making it so it can’t close all the way, and tons of loose leaf stuffed in all parts of the book. 

Harry studies the cover of it for just a moment, a weird feeling in his stomach. 

“I, um,” Harry starts, stuttering. “I wasn’t, like, purposefully making fun of you for liking Darwin, y’know. Everyone’s got, like, niche interests.” Harry’s face is definitely getting redder, a fierce burning starting in his cheeks. “Darwin’s just as cool as liking, uh, I don’t know, some boy band or something.” 

Louis huffs out a laugh and Harry dares a glance at him. Louis is looking at him, amused. 

“Darwin? Cool as a boy band? Cool as the  _ Backstreet Boys _ ?” 

Harry giggles as well, smiling. 

“Yeah, okay, you’re right. Darwin is an easy second, though.” Harry pulls the sheets out of the textbook and tries rifling through them, to make sense of them. 

When Louis doesn’t say anything for a beat too long Harry looks back up. 

“What?” Harry asks. 

“Nothing,” Louis responds. “I guess. I guess nobody’s not made fun of me for liking Darwin before. Or for thinking he’s cool. Even my friends poke fun.” Louis grabs a few half empty sheets from Harry’s pile that were covered in doodles, crumpling them up to throw away later, presumably. “Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.”

* * *

 

And that’s the start of their standing study dates, every Saturday around three at Mickey’s Diner. Sometimes Louis doesn’t need help on anything at all and they’ll just work on their own projects and papers in silence, or ignore their work entirely just to talk about the most inane subjects. They’ll compare  _ Game of Thrones _ and  _ The Walking Dead _ for shits and giggles, talk about how Captain America is  _ definitely _ dating the Winter Soldier, talk about how Iron Man really needs to give all that renewable energy in his tower to the city instead of hoarding it away for himself and the other Avengers. The waitstaff at Mickey’s eventually memorize their order so they don’t even have to ask for their food anymore, it’ll show up courtesy of Jade. Sometimes she’ll even get them some extra fries in exchange for Louis’ saved tests from a class he took last semester that she’s not doing too well in. 

They also talk a lot about their personal lives, a lot of get-to-know-you questions. Louis talks about his flatmate Liam, and Liam’s once-upon-a-time-thing-turned-best-friend Niall and Niall’s best friend Zayn and Zayn’s roommate Ed. 

“Yeah, they’re such a riot. Liam’s a tech design major. Niall’s, like, a couch surfer right now, but Zayn and Ed have this wicked nice apartment. Zayn’s this crazy good artist, right, but he pretty much exclusively uses his talent to --,” Louis pauses and looks around dramatically, holding his palm up to his mouth and whispering, “graffiti,” Harry laughs and does a zipping motion with his hands over his mouth, signaling he’ll never tell, “and he, y’know, tagged this building a couple weeks ago. Zayn’s not from here, right, he’s from such fuckwad town in, god, Idaho I think? Anyway, so Zayn’s tagging cool buildings all over Manhattan and lo and behold, he tags fucking Fisk Tower!”

Harry chokes on his drink, spluttering it all over the table. Louis laughs loudly and grabs quite a few napkins out of the dispenser on the table, running them over the mess on the table and handing a few to Harry to clean himself up with. 

“I was just as shocked when I found out. Zayn had texted me a picture of the piece he did and when I was on my way to work the next day and passing the penthouse, it’s fucking huge and all glass except for the main floor right, this  _ monstrosity _ of a building, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it but it’s so fucking ugly, and there’s Zayn’s art!” Louis is enthusiastic telling stories like this; his hands go everywhere and he talks while he eats but it’s all childlike energy and Harry loves it. “Right on the brick next to the entrance! He’d tagged one of those new superheroes, uh, the green one that changes into animals?”

“Isn’t that one just called Animal?” Harry asks. Animal, along with Boom, was there when Harry filmed Electro being taken down. “Isn’t, uh, isn’t Animal part of that new group? Super Squad?” 

Harry doesn’t know why he’s being secretive about this. Like he doesn’t know everything there is to know about Super Squad at this point. 

Animal, Boom, Fankaar, and Cyber. He’s got their names printed on his brain, Wilson Fisk standing at the back of his mind, his large shadow looming over them all. Animal in his vivid green lizard suit and shifting abilities, Boom with the sonic boom voice that ripped Harry’s eardrum in half (finally healed after over a month) and with the gaudiest blue and white suit that rivals even the Fantastic Four. Fankaar plays it much more simple: he wears jeans, some sort of hoodie, gloves, and a skull mask. He stays pretty far from the action, though, so there’s no need for him to have any specialized suit. He has the ability to bring drawings to life; he totes around a tablet, doodling up some form of a creature to do his bidding. More often than not he’ll stick around after the fact and draw up something that will fix whatever they’ve broken in their path: broken buildings, fallen trees, destroyed cars. 

Cyber’s the most interesting of them, Harry thinks. As far as anyone’s aware, he doesn’t have any powers. His face has never been seen. He’s almost like their fucking media liaison, but the way he speaks definitely belies the fact he’s had zero media training. Harry’s watched every interview Cyber has done on behalf of the Squad; he uses a lot of ‘likes’ and ‘ums’ which is fine, but it gives his age away. He’s definitely young, probably still in college or at college age. He’s also definitely some sort of tech genius; he has outright said he designed both Animal and Boom’s suits, designing them to satisfy their individual needs. 

Cyber also uses just enough buzzwords in interviews for Harry to think Cyber is doing some form of research on how to defend their Squad but otherwise there’s nothing to find out about him. Not where he may or may not have gone to school, not where he’s from, not where he lives, not what he does, not who he is. 

Cyber is the only one of their group to have ever spoken to people directly. So, with nothing to go on from the other three members of Super Squad, and no clues being given out from Cyber during his interviews, there’s nothing for Harry to go on. Not until one of them fucks up. 

“Yeah, Animal’s in Super Squad. God, it’s such a dumb name isn’t it? Like, you have people like,” Louis deepens his voice and straightens up, acting the complete news broadcaster for only Harry to see, “Iron Man, Captain America, the Black Widow, Thor: God of Thunder,” his voice goes back to normal, “all the Avengers, yeah? And, like, what a name, the Avengers. So hardcore. And then you get the fucking  _ Super Squad _ ? Ridiculous.” 

Harry’s nodding, trying to get back into the conversation. Zayn. Graffiti. Fisk Tower. 

“Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Did anything happen to Zayn?” Harry asks. Is that stupid piece of graffiti the reason Fisk gave him this ridiculous, seemingly impossible task?

“No, but I’m surprised. Fisk has cameras everywhere, he probably has access to the entire city’s camera infrastructure, and Zayn doesn’t exactly cover up when he tags. I mean, who knows, though. Maybe he wore a mask or something that day.” 

Harry nods, a bit passive, a bit checked out. “Hopefully.” Harry takes a bite of his sandwich, chewing for a moment, before continuing. “How long ago was this? Do you think he still has reason to worry?”

“Uh, three weeks ago? Probably not, though, he’d have gotten fined by now wouldn’t he?” 

Three weeks ago. That was when Fisk told him to find out about the Squad. Fuck. Fuck fuck  _ fuck _ . Zayn is a key to this, somehow. 

Harry tries to keep his cool. 

“Probably. I think he’ll be okay.”

* * *

 

With all the talk they do about their friends, society, and one lengthy conversation over the massive mistake that is  _ CATS  _ over the course of the next few weeks, one thing never comes up between them -- Mason. Never Mason. And it makes Harry wonder, just for a bit, if maybe he misread the situation at all. If Mason isn’t really Louis’ boyfriend after all, if Mason’s just maybe some weird friend Louis has, or maybe they were just dating for a bit and it didn’t work out. Harry’s hesitant to ask, lest Louis shatter all his half-formed hopes. 

It’s not like Harry’s been shy with flirting, either. Louis’ been giving it back in equal doses, biting on pencils and fluttering his eyes like some damsel in an old hollywood film. It makes Harry daydream in his lectures, too, chewing on the ends of his own pens and pencils and highlighters as he thinks about if he should dare to ask Louis out or not. If he’d get shot down immediately or not. 

He’s dipping some fries into the ketchup Louis’ squirted all over the plate (Louis is a cover-ketchup person while Harry is decidedly a dip-ketchup person) when there’s a ruckus at the entrance and Jade goes to take care of the new customers that have just walked in. They’re all in Hawaiian shirts for some reason, and while Harry loves a good Hawaiian shirt, the idea of matching with the rest of your group is just tacky. The dad of the group has a digital camera in hand, a small one that can fit in a pocket, while the kids have disposable cameras. They all have backpacks and fanny packs on as well. 

“God, I fuckin’ hate tourists.” Louis groans deeply, clearly annoyed. 

Harry can kind of overhear Jade speaking with them. They have a very strong midwestern accent, all flat tones. The mom asks for a table for all six of them and Jade tells her it’ll be a while because all of the tables are full, but if they want, they can sit at the empty bar. Harry tenses up a bit; he was a waiter while he attended DeVry and boisterous families never like being told it’ll be a wait for a table. He considers Jade a friend at this point and if the family were to become aggressive over a table --

Harry watches them thank Jade and go to the bar. He lets out a breath. 

“I’ve heard the stereotypes.” Harry says, looking back to Louis. “We never got any tourists back home; not much to see excepting cows and farms. I’ve been to the beach quite a bit and there were quite a few annoying tourists there, but we were also technically tourists then so I guess I can’t talk about it much.” 

Louis grins. “I love hearing about your cows, it’s wild to me. How many did you keep?” 

“A hundred or so.” Harry shrugs. “We have a couple horses, too, and some hogs. We tried lambing for a while there but it didn’t work out so well for us. We don’t have a very large ranch in terms of, like, production, but we have a lot of land. My folks rent out some of the land to, like, community gardens and such ‘cause sometimes people want to plant corn or other large crops and don’t have the space.” 

“I’d love to visit a ranch one day. We took field trips to farms and stuff in upper New York when I was in school but nothing like that. I bet it’s beautiful.” Louis sounds a bit wistful, propping his chin in his palm. 

Harry’s feeling spontaneous. Fuck it. 

“I’ll take you to mine, one day. Maybe over the summer? It’s gorgeous in June.” 

Louis smiles at him, soft, sweet. 

“I’d love that, Harry.” 

They go back to their food and homework for another hour when Harry notices the family again, hounding on Jade for something on their way out the door. 

“But  _ how _ do you get to Coney Island?” The mother’s asking Jade, waving her phone around. “I don’t know where Brooklyn is, or an ‘F train’, or Stillwell, can’t you give me street names?” 

“Stillwell is a street. Are you planning on taking the subway?” Jade asks, clearly uncomfortable. “There are maps at every stop, and even in the trains. I haven’t lived here long, ma’am, sorry.” 

Harry resists laughing. Jade’s lived here her whole life. 

“This is ridiculous,” the father says, “it doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived here you still need to give us directions.” 

Jade is struck by this; she looks like she’s between laughing and telling them to fuck off. 

“I don’t know how else to tell you than you need to go through Brooklyn. You can’t walk there, it’ll take all day, so you’ll need to take the subway which will give you better directions than I can. You’ll get off at Stillwell, like I said, which the map will also tell you.” 

“Where is Stillwell?” 

“The stop for Coney Island, sir.” Jade definitely sounds over it at this point, and the family is gathering stares. 

“Which is  _ where _ ?” 

“It’s in Brooklyn, you idiot, which is below us, you’ve both clearly got smartphones which will tell you where to fuckin’ go if you ask it.” Louis stands up, yelling over the din of the diner. 

Harry looks at Louis, shocked, and Jade’s expression mirrors his own. The father splutters.  

They’ve definitely got the attention of the diner now. 

“We were just asking directions.” The mother sniffs, turning her nose up. 

“No, you were hassling someone getting paid below minimum wage because you’re too stupid to figure out how to use google or read a map on your own.” 

The mother huffs again, taking the hand of a random child and yanking them out of the diner. The other children follow. 

“I’d like that tip back, this is horrible service.” The father says, sticking his hand out. 

“You paid with a card. I can’t refund tips. You’ll have to take it up with your bank.” 

The man’s lips thin and his face grows red. 

“This is ridiculous! You can’t steal from me! I want to talk to your supervisor.”

Harry stands up and goes to be beside her. Angry men are never good. 

“The only supervisor I have right now is the chef but he’s not authorized to do refunds, either. The office number is on your receipt if you want to tell my manager I didn’t give you directions.” Jade’s standing stock still, barely a shake in her voice. Harry’s own hands are shaking with nerves. 

“This is theft. I’ll be reporting you to corporate.” And the man walks out. 

“Nobody tell him this isn’t a corporation owned store.” Jade laughs out, leaning back against the hostess stand. 

“Are you alright, Jade?” Harry asks, concerned. Louis comes up to them as well, wrapping Jade in a hug, which she rolls her eyes at. 

“It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. But thank you.” 

The diner comes back to life in bits and pieces; families get back to their meals, the cook calls out an order, a baby laughs. Harry and Louis go back to their booth when Jade confirms she’s fine.

“I can’t  _ believe _ people like that. Coney Island’s shit anyway, I hope they have a terrible time.” Louis pauses. “Actually, I hope those kids have the best time of their lives and spend all their parents’ money while they’re there.” 

“Coney Island’s shit?” Harry frowns. “That’s disappointing, I was planning on going sometime. I haven’t seen much of the city outside of NYU and the  _ Bugle _ .” 

“Well you  _ definitely _ don’t want to go to Coney Island. It’s a huge waste of time, money, _ life  _ \-- it’s the worst.” 

“Oh.” He deflates. 

“Yeah, it’s such a scam. All those games are rigged, and --” Louis cuts off. 

Harry’s hoping Louis got distracted by something and isn’t focused on how disappointed Harry is. He’s got a huge checklist for things he wants to see in the city, and Coney Island is -- was -- very near the top. The Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Empire State Building, the Baxter Building. He’s dying to go to the Met as well, and see someone, anyone perform at Radio City Music Hall. 

He’s got plenty of things on his list, he doesn’t need to go to Coney Island. But like, fuck, he wanted to. Maybe he should anyways, even if it is apparently awful and boring and a waste of time and money.

“Do you want to go?” Louis asks, bringing Harry out of his fog. 

“What?” Harry asks. Why is Louis asking him that?

“I asked if you wanted to go. We could go right now, if you wanted. Jade can put our stuff in the back and we can go right now, we just need to catch a train.” Louis is already packing all of his things away, cramming papers into random textbooks and Harry tries not to cringe. They spent all of last week’s lunch organizing Louis’ notes and here is he, ruining all that effort. 

“What, right now?” Harry is shocked. This is definitely a turn around. “You just said it’s a shit place to go, Louis, why --”

“You want to go, right?” Louis interrupts. 

“I, well, yes, but --”

“Then we’re going, come on, pack your things up. Hey, Jade, can we stash our shit behind the counter for a few hours?” Louis takes Harry’s bags as well as his own behind the counter and then walks to the front door. Harry’s still in the booth seat, floored. 

“Come on, we’ll get you some corn dogs.”

* * *

Coney Island is loud. It’s loud, there’s trash everywhere, and Harry can tell immediately that nobody is here except for tourists and employees that look like they hate themselves, their jobs, but most importantly, they hate tourists.

Harry loves it. 

Well, scratch that. He loves being here with a friend, and they can share their disgust together. They walk around Luna Park for a while, checking out the area before deciding what rides Harry wants to go on the most. They only have a few hours until the park closes, the sun low in the sky so time is of the essence. Harry knows he lives here now, so he can always come back and ride the remaining rides or check out other attractions, but as he steps in yet another abandoned piece of gum, he knows he’ll never return. 

“Made any decisions yet?” Louis asks, taking a lick of the melting ice cream cone in his hand. Louis has chocolate with sprinkles, whipped cream, and chocolate drizzle, while Harry opted for banana cream pie flavored (which doesn’t taste much like banana cream pie, to Harry’s dismay) and no toppings. 

“Well, the Cyclone is a must. We should go ahead and get in line for that because I don’t wanna miss it.” Harry starts making his way over, dodging kids with balloons and employees carting things around for sale. “Are there any you want?” 

“Probably the Thunderbolt. I’ve never been here when I was actually old enough to ride any roller coasters so this is my only shot.” 

Harry turns to his right, looking across the park and seeing where the Thunderbolt sticks its ugly head up above the rest of the park. 

“Louis, that one goes straight down. I’ll lose my lunch!” Harry protests, the line inching forward. 

“Oh, come on, it won’t be that bad.”

After waiting in line for a whopping hour and a half, the Cyclone ends up being incredibly underwhelming. Well, it was  _ okay _ , but definitely not worth the time or money. Harry is a little weak at the knees when they disembark but he regains his footing quickly. 

“Are there any fun amusement parks in Georgia?” Louis asks on the walk over to the Thunderbolt. 

“My mom used to take me to Six Flags every summer. Just once a year, since it was so far from us, but still. It was okay; there wasn’t a lot for kids to do at the time but me and my sister still loved it.” 

Louis face brightens, just a smidge. 

“How many siblings do you have?” 

“Just the one, my older sister.” Harry pauses, sighing. “I miss her a lot. She’s in London right now, she works for a publishing company. Been there a couple years. It’s been...I don’t know, hard? We facetime a lot, though.” 

“Yeah, that sounds tough. I’ve got five little sisters and one little brother.” Louis sounds incredibly proud. 

“God, six siblings? That sounds like a nightmare. Well, maybe not nightmare. Hectic.”

Louis laughs. “No, it was definitely nightmarish at times. We all grew up in the city but they moved upstate a couple years ago when my mom got remarried, got a big house to stretch out in, and a proper backyard. It’s nice up there, relaxing.” 

“That sounds nice for them.” 

They chat some more on the walk over, getting sidetracked by a busker on the sidewalk. It’s free to roam around the park, and where there’s a lot of foot traffic, there’s a lot of buskers. This one is a little different; he’s a mutant with fire capabilities putting on a show. He’s got a hat a few feet in front of him in the walkway for donations and Louis and Harry both put in a few dollars. There’s more than one child entranced in front of him, watching as the fire grows and shrinks at the man’s command. But for every child, there are at least three adults giving the man a disgusted look. 

Harry grew up in a small town. He knows how small minds and small ideas work. That doesn’t mean he will ever understand them. 

It’s not until they’re in line for the Thunderbolt that Louis brings it up. 

“So, tell me to fuck off if you don’t wanna talk about it, but I remember at the club you told Mason off for using...that word.” Louis scratches his nose, clearly uncomfortable. “Again, tell me to fuck off, but are you...um…”

“No, I’m not.” Harry realizes something and stiffens slightly. “Would that be a problem?”

Louis realizes his misstep and shakes his head and hands rapidly. 

“No, no no no, absolutely not, no. One hundred percent no. I have a couple friends who are mutants and mutates. Not that that, like, automatically makes me not prejudiced. I mean,” Louis grimaces, “you met Mason and Lord knows we run in the same circles.” 

“Right.” Harry’s not sure if that’s the end of the conversation or not because there’s a long pause. 

“It’s just…” Louis takes a deep breath. “I don’t even know how to word this. I guess I’m wondering, why? You’re working for the SCLU and the _ Bugle _ . Who, like, rip into mutants pretty hard. So if you’re for equality why do you do that kind of work?”

Harry nods in understanding. “That’s a tough question.” 

Louis’ decent enough to smile. “You don’t have to answer, I know it’s really personal. I guess I’m just...curious about you.”

“The  _ Bugle _ is the leading investigator of what superheroes do. It’s exclusively superheroes and villains. Mutants and mutates make up about ninety-nine percent of that, yeah, but it’s not about that. The SCLU also only focuses on the effects directly within NYC, not the state, not the country, just NYC. From what I’ve seen it’s not ripping into mutants  but rather those who use their powers irresponsibly. Just last week Deadpool--”

“Deadpool’s a fucking weirdo prick, Harry, you can’t possibly include him. He’s barely even a hero! He just works in his own interest, moral or not.” 

“Okay. What about when Captain Marvel left what was essentially a crater in that apartment building last year? You don’t think that’s irresponsible? She indirectly killed hundreds of people.” 

“She is an  _ alien _ fighting  _ aliens _ , not a mutant.”

“I see your point, Louis, I honestly do. But superheroes -- while defending the city, country, world, whatever -- do inflict damage. Captain Marvel fighting the Kree and staving off the attack on Earth still managed to lose lives. Less lives than would have been lost had she not beaten them, yes, but they are lost lives. Those lives deserve to be defended. All wars have senseless deaths and senseless damage and these are  _ wars _ that are being waged. You don’t see Captain Marvel paying reparations to those families, right? Or helping to rebuild the building, do you? We’re just trying to hold them accountable, like anyone else. I agree they help keep all of us safe. I know that, I  _ believe _ that. I remember when the Avengers first formed when Loki had the Tesseract and my mom was terrified we all were going to die but the Avengers stopped him and saved us. But, as I’m sure you remember, all of NYC was completely torn to shit in the process and cost taxpayers billions. That  _ needs _ to be reported.” 

Louis nods. “I can see that. Senseless deaths happen too often around here because of that. But, like, the money thing -- that’s why the tax rate is so high in the city. To pay for the damages.”

“And it raises every year. What about people who can’t afford it anymore? Why not just tax Tony Stark more? If he’s got enough money to blow up his entire arsenal of Iron Man suits and rebuild all of them over again, he clearly has enough money to repair the city ten times over.”

“Yeah, I can see that too. I guess I never thought about, like, alternatives.”

“Exactly. There are always better solutions.” He pauses, and then, “I’ll admit fighting aliens and mutants who can just explode on command is hard to keep contained. I don’t know much of a good solution on that end. There needs to be some kind of discussion--”

“Don’t tell me you think the Sokovia Accords were a good idea. Regulating superheroes and only allowing them to defend people only when the government wants would never work. The government would never let them do anything!” 

“I mean, yes and no. Regulation doesn’t hurt in theory but I also know that the government would exploit that regulation, you’re right. So, in theory it’s a good idea but it would never work in practice. They’d either use superheroes as, like, death squads to do their bidding, or just never allow them to fight anything at all and use the military. They’re already using Captain America as army propaganda and he’s essentially a war criminal right now. If the government owns a person’s image, it will be exploited. So, yeah, the Sokovia Accords were a mistake.” 

They move up a few places in line. 

“You do make a lot of sense Harry. Thanks for explaining.”

“Yeah, sorry it kind of got intense for a minute. I have a lot of strong opinions about it. I am completely for mutant rights and will defend that in any way I can. Just so you know.”

Louis smiles. “Good. Now, tell me about that ranch you have. I want to hear all about baby Harry trying to wrangle a cow.” 

And that’s what they talk about for the next hour they’re in line. Harry shares stories of growing up in 4-H, raising hogs and lambs and a steer, once, but he was terrified from that experience and never did raise one again. How he helped his grandparents in their vegetable garden and at the Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning, selling cucumbers and butternut squash and watermelons. How his first crush was the boy who sold flowers across the market from his grandparent’s stall, but the boy was a solid decade older than he was, so it was never meant to be. 

Louis finds it all positively charming. 

“So what happened?”

“With what?”

“The guy. Did you ever tell him? Or did you keep it a secret, never to be revealed until now.” Louis’ eyebrows waggle, all drama in his tone. 

Harry scoffs. “Absolutely not. I was thirteen! He was home for college for the summer, he would’ve hated having some kid with a crush follow him around.” Harry sighs. “Plus, he had a girlfriend. And I’m not a homewrecker. Never have been, never will be.” 

“Oh, how generous of you!” Louis laughs. “Thirteen and with better morals than many men.”

Harry shrugs. “What can I say? Had a good upbringing.”

“You did! Back home...on the range.” 

They both laugh. 

“I liked doing all that, but...I don’t know. Wasn’t for me, I guess. Loved journalism too much. My folks weren’t too excited I didn’t want to take on the ranch but they’ll sell it, get their money’s worth, retire nice.” 

“That’ll be good for them. I know my mom loves being out of the city. She’s a nurse and gets way better hours upstate than she ever did here. She’s also not called into the hospital for near as many emergencies, either.” 

“I bet she likes being home with your siblings more, too.”

“She definitely does. My siblings never loved Brooklyn as much as I do. I don’t think I’ll ever leave the city.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She raised me. I belong to her. I’ll live and die for her.”

* * *

 

The Thunderbolt is exactly as bad as Harry imagined. Only it isn’t Harry who throws his ice cream up on the girl in front of them, it’s Louis. 

Once Louis is more cleaned up and they’ve rested on a bench for a fair amount of time, Harry suggests they try some games out. 

“You know they’re all rigged, right?” 

“Sure, they’re the same games that come on the fair every year. I like playing them and I like to think I’m good at them but now that I’ve said it out loud I probably won’t get anything.”

“Do you usually win? I never can win at these, always have to cheat somehow. I’ve always wanted, like, one of those huge stuffed bears. Mason got me a little one, once, I love it.”

That cements it in Harry’s mind immediately. 

“We’ll see.” But Harry is determined. 

They get to the water gun game first, one of Harry’s favorites. There’s no giant stuffed bear but they can work up to that. It’s just him and Louis playing this round and Harry gives the kid running the stand a five dollar bill to pay for their turn. 

Louis immediately turns the water gun on Harry the second the bell goes off and Harry gasps from the cold. They’re both laughing hysterically, Louis shooting water at Harry while Harry tries to stay concentrated on filling up the balloon. Sure enough, right before time is called, the balloon pops, spilling water all over the back wall, and Harry is soaked and victorious. 

“That’s probably why you always lose, Louis. No concentration skills.” 

Louis giggles. “That’s what my soccer coach always told me.”

Harry turns, horrified, but Louis is laughing his ass off. “Kidding, kidding, I was good at soccer. My geography teacher did once tell me I wouldn’t amount to anything but what does he know.”

“What a piece of shit.”

“I know, when I told my mom she got him suspended without pay.”  

“Good for her.”Harry looks at the prizes offered. Since he won the round and got to explode the balloon he gets the top tier prizes. “Which one do you want, Louis?” 

Louis looks surprised. 

“Seriously? I get to pick?”

“Yeah, of course.” Harry could really use a towel but the look on Louis’ face when he picks out a cute little stuffed duck small enough to fit in his pocket. It’s definitely not from the top prize rack but it doesn’t matter, not when Louis looks so soft and pink like that. 

“My littlest sister will love this, H, thanks.” 

They make their way through another few games, Harry winning at most of them. He loses a few, of course, because he’s tragically imperfect (and a sore loser, as Louis points out every time he loses and pouts all the way to the next game), but Louis is having a great time. It makes Harry wonder about Mason, and if he ever treats Louis to dates like this. Probably not. Harry wants to spoil Louis. 

Louis has to turn down a lot of the prizes as neither of them brought bags to carry anything with and they don’t want to lug around twenty stuffed animals. 

Finally, finally, they reach the bottle toss -- and hung right up front is a white bear as large as Louis, complete with a little santa hat. It’s a bit early in the year, but hey, he’s cute. 

“Oh, no, Harry, we can’t play this, I’m too short!” Louis whines, pulling on Harry’s arm to get him to go somewhere else. 

And Harry is a lot of things. He’s a sore loser but he’s also competitive as shit. He is  _ going _ to get Louis that bear. 

So he rolls up his sleeves and pays the game attendant, getting them a set of rings each. The guy goes over to another couple and starts helping them and Louis immediately tossing his rings onto the bottles. Harry begins playing as well. They each make a few hits but soon enough they’re down to two rings each and neither of them have gotten the golden bottle in the center. 

Louis looks down at the rings in his hands and the bottle in the center, face set. The attendant is distracted, helping a young child pick some prizes, and so Louis clambers up onto the counter and reaches across, tossing one of his rings. It misses by one over so Louis changes aim and makes it, dead center. 

Louis jumps off the counter and whoops with joy. 

“I won! Harry, did you see that, I won! I got it!” 

Harry can’t even be disappointed he didn’t win Louis his own giant bear because Louis is so excited he did it on his own. Harry still has two rings left to toss so he tries his best on the first one and doesn’t even make it close; a kid bumps into him and it goes skittering off the table and landing on the other side. 

“Come on, Harry, you can do it!” Louis cheers him on. The attendant comes over to help Louis pick out a prize, but, “No, no, thanks, hold on, I want to watch Harry win.” She just nods and moves to help someone else on the other side. 

“That totally doesn’t put any pressure on me.” Harry mutters, rolling his eyes goodnaturedly. Louis laughs and graciously steps back, giving him space. 

“Wouldn’t want to encroach on your greatness, oh great game master.” 

Harry aims, launches, and the ring wraps around the golden bottle in the center, right on top of Louis’. Louis erupts into cheers, waving his arms around and jumping around, causing a ruckus. Harry tries to shush him quiet but Louis just won’t stop. 

“We both won! We both won the fuckin’ bottle toss!” He keeps yelling and they’re both laughing incessantly over it, jubilated to have won a stupid carnival game. 

They give each other the santa bears and head home. Harry puts his bear on the shelf on his wall, right over his desk, next to his picture of himself, Gemma, and his mom when Gemma won first place in a statewide literature contest.

* * *

 

_ are u busy this morning? _

Harry blinks blearily at his screen, peeking at the time at the top of his too-bright screen. 3:07 am, Sunday morning. He was with Louis at the diner until almost 10:00 last night.

_ Like...now? _

_ oh no, sorry!! i thought you wouldnt see this until later lol  _

_ I forgot to put my phone on silent and it woke me up. No, I won’t be busy, why? _

_ i was thinking we could knock some more things off your list and go see some stuff in central park _

Harry smiles. He’d briefly mentioned on the way home from Coney Island that he’d finally get to knock Luna Park off his NYC hitlist and Louis had been interested to hear what else was on the list. Harry told him everything on it and got the full Make Fun of the Tourist speech, but it was all in good fun. Clearly Louis has no problem acting as his tour host in the meantime. Just last Wednesday Louis’d carted him all over SoHo as they walked in and out of clothing stores neither of them could afford, but it was still a lot of fun.

_ That sounds amazing. Would it be terribly cliche if I ask to go see Strawberry Fields? _

_ not at all! i havent gone there myself yet either so thatll be new for both of us. im assuming you wanna go down literary walk as well since ur such a nerd? _

Harry huffs a laugh. He’s so tired but fuck if Louis isn’t so sweet and funny.

_ I do, yes, thanks for checking.  _

_ we can figure out other stuff while were there. theres always vendors and shit too so itll be fun for you. _

Harry loves that Louis’ first priority is always how other people are feeling. 

_ Would it be too much to ask for us to rent a horse drawn carriage through the park? Like in Eloise at Christmastime? _

_ yes, it would _

_ :( _

_ see u at nine??? south end? _

He sends back a thumbs up and goes back to sleep with a huge smile on his face. When his alarm clock goes off a few hours later he wakes, feeling a bit groggy from his interrupted sleep. Anxious, nervous adrenaline slithers through his veins, clawing at his throat, making him feel simultaneously exhausted and hyper. 

He’s trying his best to not think of this as a date. 

Fuck, what is he going to  _ wear _ ? He opens up his phone and checks his weather app. It’s been raining sporadically the past few days and he prays today isn’t more of the same. According to the app, it’s going to be partially cloudy and just hovering sixty degrees all day. He checks the rest of the week while he’s there; no more rain until Thursday. That’ll have to be good enough. 

He goes over to his closet and yanks it open, rifling through shirt after shirt. Nick opens the door to his room, poking his head in. 

“Hey, I’m making breakfast before I head out, do you want anything?”

Sundays are the one day off Nick has from his morning gig at some radio station. Harry should be a better friend and find out which one. Harry and Nick typically do yoga together every Sunday morning and then talk about their week. Sundays are when Harry fills Nick in on what’s going on with Louis; Nick says it’s a good substitute for his own lack of a love life. So far, they’ve been a really good roommate match; Nick keeps his things in his area and Harry does the same and they both do a good job at keeping shared spaces clear of any clutter. Nick also does his own dishes, so it’s pretty great. 

“Um, no thanks. I’m meeting Louis at Central Park today, he’s gonna show me around a bit.” 

Nick grins. “Again? Are you  _ sure _ he isn’t single?”

“I’m...not sure, actually, but I don’t know, it’s still a bit early. I like this right now, I don’t wanna ruin it.” Harry says. Louis still has yet to mention Mason in any serious context and it just makes things all the more confusing for Harry. Is Louis trying to date him or is he just like this with all of his friends?

Nick nods, ever the sage, wise, older man. Well, that’s what Nick calls himself, anyway. Harry has yet to see it. Nick’s mainly just a dork. 

“Ah, yeah, that’s why you’re spending hours carefully selecting an outfit.”

“It’s not been  _ hours _ \--”

“ _ Collective _ hours, Harry, collective. You stress every time you’re going to be seeing him. Those Saturday lunch dates--”

“Study dates--”

“Are just making you miserable with want and desire.”

“You do talk so much shit, Nick, honestly.” 

They’re both laughing over each other at the ridiculousness of it all. 

“It is a bit pathetic, isn’t it?” Harry asks, calming down slightly, sweater in hand. “Wanting him this much when he’s probably got a boyfriend?”

“All I can say is this: I haven’t known you very long but I can see he makes you happy. He goes out of his way to do nice things for you, to show you around the city even though he said he hates tourists and doing tourist things. He rarely mentions Mason, so if Mason is his boyfriend he’s a shit one and Louis will probably leave him for you.” 

“I don’t know if I want that, though, I don’t know how good that would feel for me.”

“Mason sounds like a dick, I wouldn’t feel too bad for him.”

“Yeah, but...doesn’t it seem, like, morally weird? Trying to take someone’s--”

“Louis is perfectly capable of making his own relationship decisions. You wouldn’t be taking someone, he would be coming to you on his own.”

Harry grimaces at his mistake. “You’re right, bad choice of words. He’s his own person. I just...I don’t know. Hard to wrap my thoughts around it, I guess.” 

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Now, do you want some advice?”

“Um...sure?” 

“Take an umbrella. When it inevitably rains later on today, you’ll be the suave gentleman keeping your illicit lover out of the cold.” 

Harry laughs, loud. “Weather forecast says it isn’t going to rain again for a few days. I’ll just look stupid.”

Nick just shrugs. 

“Sure, Nick, whatever you say. Thanks.”

Harry chooses a light jacket, a beanie, t-shirt and jeans. He takes a shower, carefully styling his hair before remembering he’s just going to shove a hat over it anyway so it doesn’t really matter. He shoves the beanie on, messing with the bits that poke out. He grabs his wallet, his keys, his phone, and stares at the umbrella hanging on the coat rack by the door for a long moment. 

He takes it.

It’s a fairly short train ride to Central Park from his apartment’s closest station. When Harry gets off the M train he walks the five minutes down to the south end entrance and there, cuddled up in a beautifully soft grey long-sleeved shirt and jeans is Louis. They make eye contact and wave at each other, walking a short way into the park to get off the sidewalk. 

“Morning, Harry!” Louis says. He looks a little tired, circles under his eyes, but happy. He’s got a fair amount of stubble on his cheeks. Louis goes in for a hug, which is -- new. Not that Harry’s complaining. Louis smells clean, fresh, his hair a little damp, most likely from a recent shower. 

“Morning, Louis.”

Louis eyes him. “What’s up with the umbrella? It’s not supposed to rain again until, like, Wednesday I thought.”

“Thursday. My roommate insisted I needed it. Anyways, why were you up so late last night?” 

Louis just sighs, scratching at his chin. “Mason called last night. He didn’t know I met up with you at the diner every Saturday and was wondering where I was. I forgot I was supposed to go to dinner with him last night. His parents were in town and it was their last night and his mom loves me and wanted to have dinner but I totally spaced--”

“Shit, Lou, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you so late last night--”

“No, no, Harry, no. I genuinely forgot. I would’ve still forgotten whether or not we were at the diner late. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“If you’re sure?”

“I’m positive. Now -- have you had breakfast?”

Harry shakes his head no, confused. If Mason were his boyfriend, wouldn’t missing dinner with the parents be a big fucking deal? Louis’ brushing it off like it’s nothing. But then again, Mason also called and apparently yelled at Louis long enough that Louis was still awake at three in the fucking morning. Which definitely doesn’t sit right in Harry’s conscience. He’s going to make this a good day for Louis. 

“Great, gives me an excuse to grab some Wafel and Dinges.  You ever been?” 

“No, what is it?” 

Louis starts walking out of the park and heading east. “There’s a couple locations around but this is the closest, right on the corner here. Basically really good waffles, some coffee drinks. I don’t remember if this one has ice cream or not but the full size restaurants have some great ice cream.”

“Bit early for ice cream.”

Louis scoffs. “You sweet summer child. It’s always a good time for ice cream.”

They get to the little stand and Louis walks Harry through the menu, the employees looking a bit bored. For a fairly nice day out in the morning right by Central Park this place is dead. Louis gets the WMD waffle, filling the container to the brim with whipped cream, chocolate fudge, bananas, and strawberries; he asks for Nutella to be added on top of that and Harry’s teeth hurt just by looking at it but fuck if it doesn’t look delicious, too. Harry tries not to think too hard about Louis and whipped cream, together. Harry gets a simple world fair waffle with just a small serving of whipped cream and strawberries but he asks for bananas to be added as well just because they look so good on Louis’ waffle. He wishes he brought his reusable utensil set along, but it’s in his school backpack, so he’ll have to be a bit naughty and use the plastic fork instead. 

Harry looks at the coffee menu while the employee makes his waffle but all the drinks sound way too sweet. He asks for two waters because Louis didn’t ask for a drink and Harry knows he’ll inevitably want one later on, especially after all that sugar. They walk back to the park and sit down at a bench, watching people walk by and eating their waffles. 

Harry wants to bring up Mason but doesn’t know how. It turns out, he doesn’t have to.

“Hey, Harry?” Louis asks, not looking at him. He’s playing with his food a bit, turning over the soupy mess of melted whipped cream, nutella, and fudge. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m going to ask you a question but only on the condition that you answer me honestly and don’t follow up with any more questions.” 

“Um, okay, I can do that.”

“Okay. Do you think it’s okay to ghost someone?”

“In what context?”

“I said no questions.”

Harry thinks he knows where this is heading. 

“Right. Well. If it’s someone who’s done you harm and you’re trying to spare yourself, sure. Or it’s someone you definitely no longer want in your life, like you find out they’re racist or something so you cut them off from your life. But generally, no, I don’t find it to be a healthy way to handle things. If I ghosted everyone that, say, forgot to meet me somewhere,” Louis winces, “or something else trivial, then I’d have no friends left. I’d be miserable and lonely. And it just hurts the person you’re ghosting -- dropping communication completely with someone doesn’t give them a chance to redeem themselves, or to apologize.”

“Right. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I think...I think that I think the same as you. It doesn’t do anyone any good. It should only be used in, like, extreme situations.” 

Louis gets up to throw his trash away and takes Harry’s empty container with him as well. Harry wonders if Mason broke up with Louis last night, but then he feels bad for that little niggling of hope at the back of his throat. Louis is clearly upset about what Mason did last night. 

Harry is smart, he knows how to pick up on social cues. If Mason just fucking dropped Louis from every aspect of his life over forgetting to go to one dinner date, then he’s a piece of shit. Well. A bigger piece of shit than Harry already thought he was.

Louis sits back down at the bench and they people watch for a little while, relaxing under the warming sun. The clouds are parting and Harry’s regretting bringing his umbrella along. 

There’s a young boy walking by, no older than eleven. He’s got skin with raised bumps and glowing green eyes and he’s looking all around the park, clearly lost and looking for someone. One of the beat cops comes over, baton already out. Harry stands up immediately, nerves on edge, and walks closer. He pulls his phone out, opening the camera app and starting a video to record whatever may happen. Harry’s heard of too many horror stories of people being abused by the Powers that Be and having no “real” evidence to prove it in court, as though the bruises on their bodies weren’t evidence enough. 

The kid is relieved to see someone that may help him but then sees the baton and stills in his tracks. 

“You tryin’ to start some trouble, kid? Get lost.” The cop says, waving the baton in what is a clear threat. 

Louis runs over, looking the complete part of a worried caretaker. 

“He’s with us, actually. I told you not to wander off on your own,” Louis begins to pretend to berate the kid for wandering off and Louis brings him over to where Harry is standing and they both kneel down to the kids level. Harry makes sure to watch the cop leave while Louis’ complete attention is on the child. 

“My name is Louis and this is Harry. Are you okay? Are you here with someone?” Louis asks. The boy nods, checking over his shoulder and looking around. “Good, we can stay with you and help you find them.”

“I went to the bathroom and can’t find Ms. Jonnssen. She’s my foster mom right now.” He looks like he’s on the verge of tears, purple liquid welling in his eyes. “My last foster mom left me in Rockefeller. Said I was too-- too-- I thought--” The tears spill over his cheeks, “I thought this one liked me. She was nice to me.” 

Harry almost starts crying himself but Louis just looks determined.  

“We’ll find her. And if she did leave you on purpose then Harry and I’ll give her a piece of our minds and we’ll help you any way we can.” 

The kid just keeps crying, though, too distraught to respond. 

“What does she look like? Where did you last see her?” Louis prompts but he keeps crying. The purple tears leave stains down his cheeks and on his shirt but Louis pulls him close and rubs his back, shushing him gently. “It’ll be okay, it’s all going to be okay. Harry and I are going to help you.” 

There’s a few minutes of pure heartbreak for Harry and the boy eventually calms down. 

“There we go,” Louis wipes the tears off the boys face. “Crying just lets the sadness out. You feel better, right?” The boy nods. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Miguel.” 

“Well, Miguel, we’re going to help you find Ms. Jonnssen. What does she look like?” 

“She’s tall, blonde,” Miguel sniffs, “she was on the phone. She had a jacket on.” 

Louis nods, very serious. “Okay, Miguel, that’s really helpful. Thank you. Do you think you want to walk around and look for her with us or do you want to stay over here with one of us?” 

Miguel thinks about it for a bit. 

“Can I help look?”

“Absolutely. Come on.” Louis offers his hand and Miguel takes it. Miguel then offers his hand to Harry’s and Harry almost cries again. This is very overwhelming for him, he can’t imagine how awful Miguel must feel. Harry knows mutant children overwhelm the foster care system; the Xavier Institute can’t take all of them, after all. These kids get shuffled around from house to house and eventually just get lost; kids like Miguel get left places because they’re “too tough to deal with” or some other ridiculous bullshit.  

They wander around the Mall, hand in hand in hand. They get a few stares and Harry can only imagine what they look like to outsiders, but he doesn’t mind. They can have whatever opinion they want to have. 

“Miguel? Miguel? Miguel!” 

Harry swivels his head and there’s a tall blonde woman running towards them, tears streaming down her face. She crashes into Miguel, pulling him to her and sobbing, holding him close. 

“Oh, Miguel, I was so worried I’d lost you! I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…” She keeps saying and Miguel is crying and Harry and Louis are crying and everything’s a mess. “I’ll never let you out of my sight again, Miguel, I am so sorry. I know -- I know what happened last time, I will  _ never  _ leave you anywhere like that, I love you, I’m sorry.”

Ms. Jonnssen looks up at them. 

“Thank you so much for helping him come back to me. How can I repay you?” 

Louis shakes his head immediately, and Harry fully agrees. 

“He’s a lost kid, ma’am, we were happy to help.” Harry says. 

“It’s the job of anyone to help others in need.” Louis adds and she just nods. They all say their goodbyes and Miguel and Ms. Jonnssen leave, holding hands and smiling at each other. 

“You’re basically Captain America, you know.” Harry jokes. Louis just laughs. 

“Come on, you weirdo. You stepped up to help, too. Any decent person with a conscience would do the same.”

Harry knows to leave well enough alone, but he also knows that Louis is wrong. Not many people would go out of their way to help a stranger, let alone get in between a stranger’s safety and a cop. Louis is brave, incredibly so. Extraordinarily so. 

Louis motions with his shoulder, and they begin their walk further into Central Park. They walk up the Mall, passing by statue after statue of great writers and characters. Harry makes Louis take a picture of him sitting next to countless statues, making funny faces and outrageous poses. Louis laughs and indulges him. They get to the Bethesda Fountain and sit down on a bench, watching the water flow and kids throw in coins. Louis shares stories of coming out here for picnics with his family when he was a child, laying a blanket out on the green and watching the clouds roll by. How he and his sisters would wander through the Ramble, getting lost a time or two and scaring their mother half to death; they would pretend they were pirates on grand swashbuckling adventures, looking for buried treasure, or that they were grand dukes and duchesses inspecting their castle grounds. The Ramble is Louis’ favorite part of all of Central Park and Louis promises to show Harry around there when they get up towards the north end of the park. 

“Obviously this is one big park but the Ramble is, like, proper woodsy. It’s like there’s no city at all and you’ve got so much space to do as you please, I love it.” 

“I thought you adored the city?”

“I do! I do, a hundred percent. But when you’ve got as many siblings as I have it’s so great to just -- relax in an open space for once instead of cooped up in an apartment.” 

“All of you in one apartment?” 

“Okay, exaggeration, it was a townhouse. Landlord was shitty so it was pretty cheap to live there. My mom was a midwife so it paid pretty alright but there were just too many mouths to feed so it was never enough. I got a job as soon as I could at a record store to help out but I was also in high school so it wasn’t exactly top dollar either.”

Harry knows, in his mind, growing up in the city is hard on a lot of people, especially on single moms down on their luck. Growing up in rural Georgia, on a ranch cut off from the rest of the small town, he never really experienced much of society at all. He watched television, of course, watched the news, saw case after case after heartbreaking case of oppression and corruption, but he and his family were untouched by it. Harry never had to worry about food being on the table, or whether or not there’d be clean water, or air conditioning. It’s hard for Harry to imagine growing up like that himself, or to live like that now. Hearing Louis talk about growing up poor makes Harry want to fix all of his childhood problems; give past Louis all the toys and security he was never afforded. 

But Harry can’t fix that. Not now, and certainly not then. 

“That sounds like it helped your mom out a lot, though. I’m sure she was grateful for the help.” 

Louis moves his head side to side. “Ehh, kind of. Being at work meant I couldn’t look after the girls. The money was helpful but needing a minder for them kind of took away from that.” 

“I’m still sure she saw what you were trying to do. Talk to her about it, she’ll say the same.”

“You’ve never even met my mom.”

“No, but if she’s anything like you, then I know she has a good heart and noticed her eldest son doing his best to help her out in the ways he knew how.”

Louis looks back to the fountain. The angel is standing as serene as ever, olive branch in hand. Louis smiles. 

“Whatever you say, Harry.” He stands up and motions over to the terrace. “We should get a move on. Looks like the clouds are coming back in, don’t wanna get caught in the rain.” 

Harry looks up and sure enough, the sun is just shy of being blocked out. He had noticed the wind picking up but hadn’t thought anything of it. 

He’s still doubtful of Nick’s prediction. Wind can move lots of clouds around; that doesn’t mean those clouds will break. 

They go up to the terrace and head towards the Strawberry Fields. 

“Do you wanna see Cherry Hill or just hit the Beatles monument?” Louis throws over his shoulder, acting so nonchalant after all the heavy conversations they’ve had today. 

“Um, we can do Cherry Hill another day. I want to see the Ramble. Show me all your hiding spots.” 

Louis just smiles back at him. Harry sees how pleased he is in the bite of his lip and the crinkles by his eyes and Harry promises to himself -- and to Louis, and whatever God is listening -- that Harry will make him happy, always. It’s not the first time he’s promised this, and it will not be the last. 

When they get to Strawberry Fields, there’s flowers strewn all across the IMAGINE insignia. The Dakota apartments are catty-corner and Harry can look directly at them, right at their feet where Lennon was killed. 

Humans will always be capable of murder and death but here, right here, Harry can see celebration. There’s a statue of Charles Xavier, one of Lennon’s closest friends, watching serenely over the scene. Xavier is in his wheelchair and Lennon is sat beside him. Harry knows it’s just a statue, but they look so happy together. The Beatles were one of the biggest monetary supporters of the Xavier Institute besides Charles Xavier himself, constantly speaking highly in support of mutant equality.  

There’s a young couple laying flowers on the insignia, and children running through the fields. Parents are calling them over, worried about the gathering clouds. 

“‘S a bit somber, huh?” Louis says. Harry just nods. 

“My dad played them a lot when I was younger. Them, Pink Floyd, my mom always had on Fleetwood Mac. The classics. Obviously I wasn’t even born yet when Lennon died but I remember the day I learned he died. I had it in my head when I was a kid I was gonna be a big rockstar, was learnin’ the guitar and everything, and I said I was gonna meet John when I grew up. My dad’s reaction was in retrospect hilarious but at the time horrifying.”

“Oh no,” Louis laughs, all lit up and shining. “What happened?”

“Well, I mean, he had to break it to his kid his idol was already dead. How do you do that? So he just kinda knelt down to my level and started talking like ‘Well, son, now, you see, um,’ all kindsa stutterin’ all over the place and. He just kinda said ‘I don’t think that’ll be happenin’ anytime soon, on account of the fact that he died six years ‘fore you was born.’” Harry’s laughing through the entire story and so is Louis, pressing his hand to his mouth like a precious doll. “I was heartbroken, of course. Didn’t know how to go on, locked myself in my room for a week in mourning.” 

Louis’ face goes softer as they look at each other. 

“Your accent gets stronger when you talk about your family, did you know that?” 

Harry’s face blushes, quick as fire. 

“I didn’t, no.”

“It’s cute. I like it.” Louis’ mouth quirks. “My own lil’ cowboy.” Louis does a horrible southern impression when he says it and Harry gags, mock offended. 

“Right, right, okay, moving on, enough dead celebrities.”

They make their way to the Ramble and the clouds have blocked out the sun entirely. They take the long way around despite the changing weather, going down West Drive and around the lake and just enjoying being with each other. Louis asks him to say a few words and he titters the whole way; Harry’s happy to oblige.

“Did you ever have to help give birth to any farm critters?” Louis again puts on his exaggerated accent on ‘critters,’ laughing while he does. While the sun’s been covered it seems Louis has taken on its role. 

“Sometimes, yeah, mainly during lambing season. We only did sheep for four years and it was a lot of upkeep. You gotta shear ‘em down every spring or else their wool gets too thick and they’ll die from heat exhaustion.”

“Yikes, I’d no idea. And what about your cows? Were they dairy cows?”

“They were when my grandparents had the ranch but my mom didn’t have the stomach for it. You’ve gotta, like, knock up the cows and wean the babies off milk early so you can milk the mother.” 

Louis’ eyes are wide and horrified. 

“I’m never drinking milk again.”

Harry laughs, loud and abrupt. 

“If you want. Dairy operations do feed the calves milk but it’s from a powder base so obviously not as good for the baby. My mom hated that, and I do too, it‘s why I use mainly almond milk now. We just had the cows from when it was a dairy farm and we would just kinda let ‘em hang out. Sometimes we’d get babies and give them to the 4-H kids; we did that with our lambs and hogs, too.”

“Sounds like the most ethical ranch this side of the Mississippi.” 

Harry just chuckles. “We certainly tried our best.”

When they get to the Ramble Louis veers off the path and Harry looks around them. 

“Is this allowed? Can we do that?”

Louis pauses and thinks. 

He shrugs. He keeps walking. 

Harry follows. 

“Me and my sisters would always come out here to this one tree, we tried to carve our names but it didn’t work very well because -- aha!” Louis jumps in excitement, beaming, as he rounds a tree and proudly points to the bark. When Harry looks at it, a patch-work of letters comes into focus, an L here, an F there, a C down the bottom. “We were all way too young to have a knife but we somehow got one. I could sort of write my name but Charlotte and Felicite were too young to know so I tried to just do initials but they insisted on doing their own. Charlotte ended up cutting herself pretty bad but--” Louis presses his fingers against the tree. “But this became our spot, every time we came here. This was where we buried our treasure, where we held hostages, where we camped and had tea parties.” 

Harry looks at the tree. It’s just a normal tree, not even particularly tall or thick, doesn’t have any pretty flowers on it. But to a child, the woods are a forest, and a tree can be magic. 

“Thanks for sharing that with me.” Harry says, touching the tree right next to where there’s an LW and half of a T. 

Louis shrugs, bashful and a little embarrassed. “I mean, it was just dumb kid stuff-”

“No, it wasn’t. This is where you came and bonded with your family and clearly made some amazing memories.” 

The sky opens up above them and rain comes pouring down. Harry opens up the umbrella quickly, holding it above both of them. Louis smiles at him. 

“Well, then, you’re welcome.” 

They stand out there by that small, nondescript tree in the rain for a long time.

* * *

 

It’s three days before Halloween when Harry gets a text on his phone from Louis.

_ hey im gonna be late tomorrow ive got lunch w some friends out in the bronx and idk how long itll take ill let u kno _

He’s just walking out of his history of journalism class and trying not to feel incredibly disappointed in himself for the less than stellar grade he got on his latest paper. A 62 wasn’t that bad in retrospect -- he thought he had done a lot worse -- and wouldn’t affect his GPA too badly in the long run but fuck did it hurt in the moment. 

_ That’s fine, have fun! We don’t have to meet tomorrow either if you’d like to be with them longer. We can reschedule, or just pick up again next week. Let me know.  _

_ nah i wanna still be there. i like hangin out w u, i dont wanna miss that _

The text is resplendent with a kissy emoji tagged on the end. Which. That’s  _ definitely _ flirting. He and Louis have still been meeting up every Saturday at Mickey’s Diner, not a single day missed, but they’ve been meeting up at the Coffee Bean every time Louis works as well. He gives Harry one free cup of whatever he wants, and Harry’s been tasting his way through the entire menu pretty steadily. 

Most importantly, there’s been zero mention of Mason. Which probably means he’s gone for good. 

Harry’s heart is hit with a heatwave of hope and it burns straight through his veins and arteries, warming him up from the inside out. He’s gonna do it. He’ll ask him out. Tomorrow, at Mickey’s. Fuck all of it, he’s going to take a  _ chance _ , goddamnit. 

Harry sends back a quick, nondescript confirmation, and walks towards his apartment. It’s a beautiful day and the chill of New York is starting to set in. Harry’s definitely worried about that, along with snow. Georgia doesn’t get much of it at all -- a few inches,  _ maybe _ \-- and from what he knows about, well, general geography, the city’s bound to get an absolute hammering. He’s just lucky he won’t be driving in it. 

Since the weather is so nice, he decides to walk to a sushi place he’s been meaning to check out. Friday afternoons are rarely free for him but his interview with the owner of a chain restaurant that had three of his locations demolished within the past two years rescheduled for later that evening so he’s got plenty of time until then. He orders a dragon roll for himself and some spicy tuna rolls for Nick and he asks them to make both orders to go. His backpack is already killing his back, stuffed full of his laptop and all his textbooks, his camera bag slung around his shoulder as well and he’s so ready to go home and rest. He takes his to-go bag when his order is called and makes to leave, but -- 

But. There’s this guy standing directly in the entrance, holding the door open and looking at Harry expectantly, like he knew Harry would be here despite this being the literal first fucking time he’s ever been. He must’ve followed Harry here. The guy makes a brief ‘follow me’ motion with his head and ducks back out onto the street and Harry curses the day he decided to become an investigative journalist. 

He follows. 

He’s wearing very casual clothes, just jeans, some overwashed, faded t-shirt with writing that’s hardly legible anymore, and a nondescript baseball cap. Harry almost loses him in the crowd once or twice, his outfit making him blend in with just about everyone walking on the sidewalk around them. He walks down an alleyway and dodges across the next street, Harry struggling to keep up. They’re making their way back to campus, Harry notices, but that could easily be coincidence. 

He keeps looking to check if Harry’s following, too, and Harry notices he has a shock of red hair peeking out from underneath his cap.  The further they walk the closer they get to campus and the more confused Harry gets. Eventually, though, they make a stop in an alley, right next to the Coffee Bean. 

Fuck, they’re right next to the Coffee Bean. It’s just past six at night, so if Louis’ working tonight he would definitely be inside. Harry’s already stressed and exhausted and does not need to worry about Louis’ safety on top of that, but, fuck if he isn’t terrified this is some mutant with explosive fiery powers set to destroy the Coffee Bean for some inane reason. 

Instead, he sticks his hand out. 

“Ed Sheeran.” 

Harry nods, dimly, a bit confused. He stares at the proffered hand before hesitatingly accepting it in his own, shaking it slowly. This isn’t even close to what he expected. 

“Harry Styles,” he responds. 

“I know.” Ed says. “You work for Jameson.” 

Harry shakes his head a bit, scrunching his brows. “I work for the  _ Daily Bugle _ , for the SCLU.”

“Yeah,” Ed replies, a bit of a ‘duh’ implication in his voice, “which means you work for Jameson.” 

“Just because Jameson owns the  _ Bugle _ \--”

“It means he owns every word printed in that paper and he owns you and your stories. He owns you and your interviews, your words, anything you do in that building is to help him and his paycheck. Jameson doesn’t care about the truth, he cares about his ego.” Ed says, looking frustrated the further he goes on. “He and Fisk gave you a special mission, right?” 

Harry isn’t sure if he should answer that, but Ed continues on without a response anyway. 

“That was me, last year.” Ed looks around them, making sure nobody’s close enough to hear. “I was the intern last year, I got assigned to find out superhero names. I got assigned that girl group, Little Mix. Fisk and Jameson hate mutants.  _ Hate  _ them. You’ll never hear them say it but it’s true. I got out of there as quickly as I could. I’m not saying you have to, I know it’s a good as fuck opportunity, but just -- think about what you’re doing. Who the good people really are.” 

Harry pauses a moment, and then says, “I will. Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome.” Ed nods. “I’ve been keeping some tabs on you.”

Harry huffs out a laugh. “So I’ve noticed. I’d never even been to that sushi place before.” 

“You need to pay better attention. If you haven’t noticed me, how many others do you think are watching?”

* * *

 

Harry doesn’t get many answers from meeting Ed Sheeran.  He gets a lot of questions -- too many. It’s not until later that day that Harry puts two and two together. 

_ Hey Louis weird question but what is Zayn’s roommate’s last name? I think I just met him.  _

It’s well over two hours later, around eleven, that Harry gets a response. 

_ sheeran !! such a riot isnt he ?  _

He doesn’t respond. What else is there t

o even say to that? A riot? More like some weird fucking stalker who’s been ‘keeping tabs’ for who knows how long for who knows what reason. 

Harry’s just scrolling Instagram, trying to keep himself from freaking out and becoming ultra paranoid -- when he stops doing normal things due to fear of being observed, then he’ll worry. Right now, he needs to do something fucking normal. 

There’s a picture on Louis’ Instagram of Mason, Louis, Ed, and a few others at some club. Harry taps the picture and sees a few tagged people; @zayn, @masonv, @eddieboi, @fakeliampayne, and @fakerniallhoran. That last one must be some kind of inside joke from when Liam and Niall dated. It’s so strange, to know so much about people he’s never met. His town growing up was small; everyone knew everyone from the moment they were born. Going to DeVry was a huge wake up call for his social life, and NYU is even more intense. 

Now he’s got the richest man on earth asking him to find out the identities of four fuckwit college students who think they’re making a difference in the world, and some other fuckwit college student trailing him because of it. 

The Instagram picture has a caption:  _ birthdays with the lads !!  _ It has a bunch of emojis on the end. And -- shit.  _ Shit _ . Birthday. Louis’ having lunch with friends the next day, and is apparently out with them at a club right now celebrating his birthday. Harry has the inexplicable urge to check the calendar. It’s just before Halloween and Harry distinctly remembers Louis saying he is a capricorn and  _ not _ a scorpio. Louis isn’t exactly the type to know about zodiac stuff, though, unlike Harry who has a vague interest in it.  _ Fuck _ , what is Harry supposed to get him? 

It’s already almost midnight. He has to be at the SCLU meeting bright and early in the morning, so he has two options: find a store open 24 hours, or wake up even earlier than he normally would in the mornings and try to find something before his meeting. He debates, staring as the clock went forever onward. 

_ 12:07, 12:08, 12:09 _ …

Harry sighs deeply, shifting in bed. He’s exhausted after everything that’s occurred. He should sleep, wake up at his regular time, go to his meeting, grab a cupcake or five from that nice bakery by the  _ Bugle _ that has the best buttercream he’s ever had, and tell Louis happy birthday. That should be enough. 

But it’s _ Louis’ birthday _ . 

He groans, sitting up and swinging his legs out of bed. 12:16. What could he possibly get Louis this late at night? 

_ I guess nobody’s not made fun of me for liking Darwin before.  _

And just like that, Harry’s got it.

* * *

 

It’s 4:45 and Louis still isn’t here. Jade keeps giving him these sad eyes but Louis did warn him that he wasn’t sure when he would arrive, so Harry is trying to stay patient. He’s just glad he didn’t light the candles yet. 

The present is wrapped neatly, a gleaming white bow on top. He wrapped it all by himself, too, and he’s quite proud of it. There’s four cupcakes from the bakery and a single candle in each and he’s got his lighter in his pocket. Jade keeps bringing over pity fries. 

Harry resists checking his phone for the umpteenth time to see if Louis’ texted his ETA. When Harry caves and reaches for his phone, he finally hears that amazing, blessed bell jingle from the door, and in walks Louis. 

Well, Louis and quite a few others. 

Harry feels incredibly caught out. He tries to hide the present and candles before Louis and his friends see -- this is so stupid, what was he  _ thinking _ \--

“Harry, my friends wanted to meet you!” Louis says, practically skipping over to their usual table he’s so full of energy. Harry recognizes Niall, Zayn, and Liam from the photo last night, and is grateful Mason isn’t here as well. “Oh, what’re these for?” 

Harry halts in his task, the present halfway into his backpack, and thinks for a long moment whether or not he can do this in front of strangers. Not even just strangers, Louis’  _ best friends _ . 

“Uh,” Harry’s stuck. Louis sits down next to him, Niall and Zayn sliding into the booth across from them and Liam pulling up a chair. Louis pulls a cupcake close to him. 

“Oh, there’s only four.” Louis says, sticking his finger into the buttercream and he slapping Niall’s hand away from one. “Stop that, Harry didn’t bring these for you. Just for that, you’re going to be the odd one out.” 

Zayn’s staring at him, hard. Well, staring at Harry’s hand which is still shoved into the backpack next to him, holding the present. 

“I feel we aren’t welcome today.” Zayn says, making eye contact with Harry. Zayn seems to be eating this up, amusement sparkling in his eyes. “I’m Zayn, by the way.” 

“Ow!” Louis shouts, glaring at Liam. “What was that for?” 

“You shouldn't make Zayn introduce us for you.” Liam says, shrugging, and Jade walks over, making a pity face at Harry again. Harry should never have confided his plans in Jade. Now she feels sorry for him and will bring him even more pity fries and he’ll eat too many and feel sick later. 

“Fine, Harry, this is Zayn, Liam, and Niall,” Louis sighs, pointing them out individually as he goes along. 

Zayn asks for a menu for him and Liam while Niall quick-fire orders a burger and fries. Jade already knows Harry’s and Louis’ orders by heart so she goes to the kitchen. 

“What’re you doin’ in your bag, H?” Louis asks, talking while trying to discreetly take a bit of cupcake. Harry’s  _ still _ got his fucking hand in his backpack. 

“I, uh, I got you a present.” Harry says and he slowly, slowly, takes his hand and the present out of the bag. The bow is a little wrinkled now but Louis lights up, setting the cupcake down and making gimme hands, bouncing in his seat a little. 

“A present and cupcakes!” Louis laughs in his excitement. “What is all this for?” 

And -- of all the questions Harry’d expected to get today, that is the last of them. 

“It’s for your birthday.” All four boys turn to look at him, confused. “Right?”

Louis sets the present down on the table, gently. 

“Harry, this is amazing and so sweet. I love it -- I really do. But my birthday’s on Christmas Eve.” Louis reaches over and places his hand on top of where Harry’s is resting over the table, and grasps his hands gently. “But I love this. Thank you.” 

Harry is simultaneously mortified and exulted. He wants to turn his hand over and grasp Louis’ hand firmly in his own, to lay a kiss on his sweet cheek. 

“Oh,” he breathes out. “You’re welcome. I, um, saw on Instagram your picture last night, and I just...assumed--”

“Oh!” Louis interrupts, realization crossing his face. “Yesterday was Mason’s birthday so we all took him out to celebrate.” 

Well, there went Harry’s brief good mood. 

Harry just nods, noticing Zayn’s got his own lighter out. 

“May as well light these if there’s candles, right?” 

“We should sing happy birthday too!” Niall adds, and Liam chimes in with a “Maybe they’ll bring out cake if we do.”

Louis scoffs. “We already have cupcakes that Harry brought for  _ me _ , thanks, we don’t need cake too.”

“There’s only four cupcakes, you need to share,” Zayn points out, lighting the last candle. 

Niall and Liam start singing happy birthday while Louis tries his best to get them to shut up and it ends up being such a distraction to the other patrons that Jade has to ask them to quiet down and there will be absolutely  _ no _ cake. Liam deflates. 

It’s a bit chaotic, but Harry kind of loves it. He can tell they’ve been friends for a long time just by observing them together, even if Louis hadn’t told him so prior to this. 

When Louis blows out his candle and makes his wish, he immediately rips into the wrapping paper to open his present. Louis does set the little bow aside, perfectly intact, and Harry smiles. 

“O _ n the Law Which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species _ ,” Louis reads aloud, “Alfred Russel Wallace.” 

Louis sits there, not saying anything else, and Harry waits tensely on his reaction. Louis bites his lip and opens up front cover, looking at the visage of Alfred Russel Wallace on the first page. 

“Who’s that?” Niall asks, Jade setting the tray of ordered food down on a pop-up stand so she can divvy the food out easier. She sees the opened present and smiles big, excited. 

“Oh, Louis, what’d you get?” She asks. She starts setting the food out; burger and fries for Niall, Liam, and Louis, chicken tenders for Harry with arguably too much barbecue sauce, and a veggie burger for Zayn. According to Louis, Zayn gets phases where he fancies himself a vegetarian but they never last long. 

“Harry got me a book by Alfred Russel Wallace. He traveled with Darwin on quite a few excursions; the world’s largest bee is named after him. It’s the same size as a thumb.” Niall chokes on his fries at that. “He helped Darwin develop the theory of evolution. Not as many people know about him as they do Darwin though.” Louis looks over to Harry, eyes shining. “This is really thoughtful, Harry, thank you.” 

Harry presses his lips together, pleased that Louis likes his present so much. Louis begins flipping through the pages. 

“How did you even find this? Bookstores don’t really carry them anymore, you gotta order them special online.” Louis stops on a page, his fingers hovering over the sentence  _ Now let this branch of allied species, by geological mutations, be completely or partially destroyed.  _ Louis doesn’t even let him answer before he carries on, “God, what a genius. They didn’t even know about mutant evolution when they wrote their studies and yet they completely predicted human evolution. They knew it would happen before any of us. Everyone thought they were crazy but -- shit, they were incredible.” 

Harry had gone on Google and found a close bookstore that is open 24 hours and when he had walked in, the girl at the counter look confused as to why Harry was walking in so late. He had gone up to her and asked where her natural science section was but she just shook her head, saying there wasn’t one, but there was general science. So Harry had gone over and perused the section, pulling out book after book but nothing stood out to him. He couldn’t find a single thing by Darwin, but right as he was leaving he passed by the used book section, and Wallace’s book was sitting there, out of place on top of some children’s books. 

It had felt like a sign. Harry had bought it immediately, six seventy-five to make Louis beam like he is right now. 

He would’ve paid a lot more for the same reaction. 

“So...Harry got you some weird nerd book for your not-birthday?” Liam asks and, okay, it is kinda funny. Louis still smacks the book against Liam’s arm for saying it, though. 

“Shut up, Liam; Harry, I love it, I do. It’s the best present I’ve ever gotten.” 

Liam looks put out. “What about that--”

“Nope, not even close. Sorry, Liam.”

Liam just munches on a fry, pouting. 

Harry can barely contain his smile. 

“Didn’t y’all just come from lunch?” Harry asks, realizing all of them are eating. 

Niall laughs a bit. “Sure, but some of us have the munchies as well.” He waggles his eyebrows and, okay, now Harry understands why they’re all hyperactive. 

“I thought weed made folks more lax?” 

Louis just shrugs. “Some strains do, yeah, but not Zayn’s.” 

“You deal?” 

Zayn shakes his head. 

“Just grow it. I have a studio apartment so it’s got enough room. I don’t sell it and only people I trust know I grow it.” He quirks an eyebrow. “Don’t let me down.”

Harry just nods. 

Louis takes another cupcake and nobody complains that he’s taking all of them. Harry bought all of them for him, anyway, he may as well get them. 

“You ever smoke, H?” Louis asks, icing stuck to his upper lip and getting caught in his light beard. He’s been growing it out the past few days and Harry loves it. Wonders what it’d be like to kiss him; he’s never kissed anyone with facial hair before. 

“A couple times, at DeVry. Was okay.” 

Jade comes back over to their table and begins clearing off empty plates. 

“Want me to take that?” She asks, pointing at the empty cupcake container. The third and fourth cupcakes are already sat in front of Louis so Harry nods and she puts it on top of the stack of empty plates. She refills their drinks and her watch pings off, a pink  _ LAP _ and lightning bolt lighting up her watch face. She snatches her arm back quickly and smacks the face of it, shutting the sound off. 

“Alright, Jade?” Louis asks and she nods. 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry, forgot to turn that alarm off.”

“We’ll have to get you high one of these days, then, Haz.” Louis says, eating another cupcake. “Only if you want, of course, nothing wrong with not wanting to smoke weed. I don’t want to pressure you.” 

“I’ll think about it.”

Harry’s phone rings; it’s Bill Price, the lead SCLU reporter in Queens. They just got out of their meeting a few hours ago, what could he need?

“Yeah, Bill, what’s up?” Harry answers. Louis looks over, curious. Harry sees Jade running out the door, tossing her jacket over her shoulder onto the hostess podium. 

“We’ve got a problem at Trinity Church, I need you here pronto.” 

Liam’s phone goes off too and he presses a few buttons on it. He stands up, tossing some bills onto the table, and Niall and Zayn follow. 

“What kind of problem, Bill?” 

“A big one, just get here, bring your camera.” 

“Um, okay, what--” but Bill’s already hung up the phone. 

“What’s going on?” Louis asks. 

“Is Trinity Church in Queens?” Harry asks, rustling through his bag and looking for his camera. 

“What? No, it’s near Broadway and Wall Street. What’s going on?” Louis can sense the urgency at hand, and Liam, Niall, and Zayn are already on their way out. “Guys, where are you going?” 

“Explain later!” Is all Niall yells before they’re gone. 

“Something’s happening there and the SCLU needs me there, like, yesterday, probably.  _ Fuck _ , where is my camera?” 

“It’s in the front zip, Harry, Jesus.” Louis scoots out of the booth so Harry can get out and Harry runs off, camera in hand. “Harry, wait one fucking second!” 

Harry halts. The whole diner is distracted by the emergency alerts going off on their phones and the breaking news on the television. 

Harry only has eyes for Louis. 

“You have to come back.” Louis looks near tears. “You can’t die.”

“I won’t. I promise.” Harry walks back over and pulls Louis into him, holding him close in a tight hug to his chest that Louis returns just as hard. “I promise I will come back.” 

Louis nods and lets him go.

* * *

 

When Harry gets to Wall Street, Sandman is outside Trinity Church. Fankaar and Animal are on the scene, as well as Vague from Little Mix (well, Harry assumes she’s there at any rate; he hears Fankaar call out to her a few times but considering she’s invisible, it’s hard to tell). Fankaar is doing his best, out of the way on his hoverboard, above the steeple and drawing away on his tablet, making little monsters and creatures to attack Sandman again and again. It’s difficult to defeat someone made of sand, though; every hit he just puts himself back together again. Animal keeps shifting, again and again and again, from ancient dinosaurs to a huge elephant to a small bird that tries to peck Sandman’s eyes out.

Harry and Bill and Maggie are all far enough away they have to zoom their cameras in all the way just to see them vaguely. They’re all running towards the church, trying to see what’s going on. 

None of them expect the bomb. 

It goes off in the middle of the street, exposing the subway system below. Bill gets a broken leg and Harry drops his camera when he gets hit with debris, shattering it; he picks it back up and shoves the pieces in his camera bag, hoping the SIM card is still functioning, and,  _ fuck _ , his arm hurts. Bill is screaming and it’s -- god, it’s fucking bad. Maggie isn’t much better, blood running down the side of her face, but at least she’s standing. EMTs intercept them all and round them up into an ambulance, and through the window, Harry watches as Sandman dissipates into thin air, granules flowing towards the now-exposed train tracks below.

* * *

 

“You fucking prick!” 

Harry blinks, the bright hospital lights over his bed taking him by surprise. He hadn’t realised he’d fallen asleep. He wiggles his toes, and they’re working fine, so he tries his fingers and -- okay, they’re moving, but he does have his left arm in a splint. Thank God he’s right handed. The curtain that had been surrounding his bed in the ER is now opened and a nurse is running over to his bedside. 

“Sir, Mr. Styles needs rest, I asked you to stay in the waiting area.”

Harry looks at who’s come and -- oh. 

“No, no, it’s okay. Hi, Louis.”

Louis looks like he hasn’t slept in days and he has obvious tear tracks in his cheeks. He also looks incredibly angry.

“You promised me you wouldn’t get hurt!” Louis yells at him, a hitch in his voice. Harry wants to pull him close, kiss those worry-swollen lips of his. The nurse begins testing Harry’s vitals, but Harry also feels like she’s there as a quasi-bodyguard. 

“No,” Harry winces when the nurse begins checking his blood pressure, “I promised I wouldn’t die. And I did not.”

Louis’ lips twitch in a small smile, and then he grabs Harry and pulls him into a hug, almost climbing into the bed with him. The nurse moves to the side when she’s done with his blood pressure, says something about how Harry’s fine for now and she’ll be back later, and leaves. 

“You’re still an asshole,” Louis mumbles into Harry’s neck. Harry can feel Louis’ hands shaking and he reaches around and rubs Louis’ back with his good arm, ignoring the strong urge to put a hand on the back of Louis’ neck and curl his fingers into his hair. Louis pulls back after a moment, much to Harry’s disappointment. “Is it broken?” 

“No, just fractured.” Louis rolls his eyes and mouths ‘ _ just _ ’ like fracturing an arm is something innocuous. “Hey, it could’ve easily been worse.”

“I know! This is why all the fuckin’ locals stay as far away as humanly possible. And you just go running at the first sign of trouble.” Louis sits down on the edge of the bed and Harry shifts to accommodate him. “When I saw on the news there was a bomb, I--” 

“I’m so sorry, Lou.”

“I get that it’s your job, Harry, and I don’t -- I won’t ask you to stop it but. You’re my best friend, Harry. I can’t lose you so soon after finding you.” Louis grabs onto Harry’s hand, holding it in both of his. God, Harry wants to kiss him so badly. 

“I’m your best friend?” Harry asks, a little surprised. He knows that he and Louis have grown quite close the past few months, but it’s still unexpected to him. 

“Yes, best friend!” Louis smiles. “Who else could I possibly have fill that position than you? You threw me the best birthday lunch I’ve ever had, and it isn’t even my birthday.”

God, that had really just been a few hours ago. 

“Have you talked to Jade? Or one of the boys?”

Louis shakes his head. “Not a word. They all took off in such a rush...it must’ve been related to what happened. They took off when you got the call and right before the emergency alerts went out to everyone’s phones.”

“Yeah, but how could they have known?”

“I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see I guess.” Louis shrugs. “I hope they’re okay. That they’re not somewhere here, or in another hospital.” 

“How did you know I was here, anyway?”

“Ed called me.” Louis’ eyebrows scrunch together. “I wonder how he knew you were here.” 

“He used to work for the SCLU, he probably still talks to some of the members.”

Louis nods in understanding. Harry is feeling exhausted by this point in the conversation but he doesn’t want Louis to leave. 

“I’m really tired, Louis. Would you mind staying? Or coming back in a few hours?” 

Louis shakes his head and smiles at him. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” And Louis sets about leaning the bed back and lying down beside him. 

Harry could get used to this.

* * *

 

Harry ends up getting discharged a few hours later with orders to return to the hospital in a week to take more x-rays and to get a more permanent cast instead of a sling and splint. All of his signs are stable and he doesn’t have any symptoms of a concussion so he gets to go home. Louis is the one to help him to his apartment, even though Harry insists that it’s just a fractured arm, not a broken spine. Louis just tuts and walks along anyways. 

When they make it back to his apartment, Harry fishes his keys out of his backpack. Louis had brought it with him to the hospital, thankfully. He literally had only taken his camera, phone, and wallet with him and taken off -- not his keys, not his expensive laptop, nothing. Nick isn’t home right now, and Harry’s grateful he doesn’t have to answer any of Nick’s inevitably grilling questions right now. He will later, but right now all he wants to do is sleep. 

The hospital’s pain medications are definitely kicking in. 

Louis figures out the layout of the apartment quickly enough, helping Harry into his bed and bringing back some water for later. Harry is so tired he can hardly keep his eyes open, let alone thank Louis for all the effort he’s putting into taking care of Harry. 

And then, right before Harry falls asleep, Louis lays a kiss right on his forehead, like a dream.

* * *

 

The kiss, of course, is never brought up. Harry’s bravado from the morning of Louis’ not-birthday has completely gone, and in its place is a swell of pining that sits right at the back of his throat every time he looks at Louis. Their diner dates never stop, and on the day Harry gets his cast off Louis decides to knock one more thing off of Harry’s bucket list as winter sets in. Harry’s never seen this much snow in all his life and he’s so fucking cold all the time; Louis, of course, never fails to make fun of him for it. 

They’re at the Statue of Liberty and drinking hot chocolate currently, Harry’s body shivering so hard in his four layers of clothing he’s desperately trying to not spill his drink all over his gloves. 

“You’re being so dramatic!” Louis laughs. He’s in a peacoat, gloves, scarf, and hat since it’s actively snowing out, but compared to Harry’s parka, Louis looks like it may as well be fall out still. “Ever since you came back from Thanksgiving break you’ve been dying. I think you got a bit too used to the Georgia weather, Styles.”

“It was only a week. And the river is fucking frozen, Louis, look at it! There’s ice in the water! Where does that happen outside of, fucking, I don’t know, Antarctica? I misplaced my favorite sweater, too, that one I wore to Mickey’s the other week. The lavender one. Gone too soon. I can’t even be fashionable in this weather.” 

Louis just shakes his head, smiling a bit to himself. 

“You sweet summer child. Did you have fun with your family, at least?”

Harry pretends to hem and haw for a moment, Louis shoving him. 

“Yes, yes, you know I love my family. My momma made her famous pecan pie and my cousins from Louisiana tried to make some beignets but they’re not even from New Orleans, and they literally just moved to Louisiana like, two years ago, I didn’t get it. They tasted awful. But we had pecan pie, sweet potato pie, some amazing collards and fried chicken--”

“Fried chicken on Thanksgiving? No turkey?”

“No, we had turkey too, but fried chicken is the way to go. It’s infinitely better than turkey. Anyways, the collard greens were my responsibility this year and I just about died. I can’t stand cooking them, they make my eyes water, but fuck if they ain’t delicious.”

“Little bit of bragging?”

“Who, little ol’ me?” Harry asks, putting on a dramatically innocent expression. “My family was great though. Gemma came home with her new boyfriend which made everything crazy because my grammy thought they were engaged. I liked him though, he was real chill.”

“My sister brought a boy home too! Lottie brought her first boyfriend home. He was...alright.”

“Oh? Just alright?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I mean that literally. I don’t know. I want the best for my sisters, y’know? No matter who they want to be with I want them to be happy. He was alright. He was kind, polite, didn’t interrupt anybody, helped mom wash the dishes…”

“But?” Harry prompted. 

“But, I don’t know. He didn’t mesh well, I guess. You had to keep asking him questions and then he’d only answer the question and not speak again unless prompted. It was weird. We’re a loud bunch so I think he might’ve been overwhelmed.”

“An okay guy.”

“Yeah, an okay guy.”

Harry wonders if he would get along with Louis’ family. If they’d find him funny, or just cheesy. If his sisters would like the stories he tells to his cousin’s children every family reunion. If Louis would ever kiss him again. 

“How’s your internship coming, anyways? You never talk to me about it.” 

Harry never talks to Louis about it because it’s so fucking complicated. Not that he thinks Louis wouldn’t understand the internship itself, of course not, but everything else tangled up in it is so hard to explain. Fisk hasn’t checked in on Harry once and it makes Harry worried beyond belief as to what could be waiting for him on the other end. 

He’s done more research on other major cities with a high concentration of mutants. Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Every instance Harry can find of a superhero or villain being revealed has ended poorly and has always resulted from an accident, not successful investigation or sleuthing. A hero dies and they have to identify the body. A villain’s leg gets blown off and his mask gets taken off when he reaches the hospital. There was one instance in Los Angeles where a pair of superheroes, The Commander and his wife Jetstream, were forced to identify themselves in order to protect a bus full of children that had been on their way to school. It only ended in tragedy; the villain had been bluffing and the bus had been blown up anyways. 

It doesn’t sit well on Harry’s conscience that he’s been tasked to reveal their identities. But, after Ed’s warning, Harry wonders if his life is in any danger. 

“I mean, other than the bombs and laser eyes coming my way every few weeks, I’d say it’s going swimmingly.” Harry jokes, trying to avoid any serious topics. “I mainly write reports and do follow-up interviews, anyways. They only ask me to tag along if it’s completely necessary.”

“Well, it’s good they try to keep you out of danger, for the most part.”

And isn’t that the problem? The  _ Daily Bugle _ is putting him in danger’s direct way.

* * *

 

The snow is too thick for Harry to travel back home for Christmas or New Year’s. It’s a huge blow, as Christmas is one of Harry’s absolutely favorite holidays and he’s missed his family a lot, being away from them so much this year. When he attended DeVry he could go home whenever he wanted for a quick weekend trip or something, but all the way up here -- and without a car, even -- it’s much more difficult. No planes are flying out of JFK or any surrounding airports anytime soon. 

But, Harry thinks as he ties a pretty, sparkly-blue bow around the gift in his hands, he will be here for Louis’ actual birthday celebration. It’s not for two more weeks but Harry is nothing if not prepared for this birthday. He hasn’t gone quite as sentimental this time; there will be a lot more people at Louis’ party that Harry doesn’t know so he doesn’t want to get too sappy in front of them. He’s gotten him some money, because he knows Louis has too many presents to buy this time of year and he’s so tight on money he hasn’t been able to buy any food when they go to Mickey’s (although Jade and Al, the cook they’ve finally met, still give Louis meals on the house), so Harry got him a VISA gift card. It’s an easy present to give for his birthday. 

Harry also got Louis a Christmas present. He’s sure Louis grew up with loads and loads of “combo” presents while all the other kids got a birthday present and a separate Christmas present, so why should Louis be any different? It’s definitely more of a gag gift but he knows Louis will get a kick out of it; it’s a little mug that’s been painted a soft, seashell pink, with a darker pink paint swirling designs all over it. The designs, however, have little hidden penises entwined in them. 

There’s a chime on his phone. 

_ i know i said my bday party wld be at mine and liams but mason actually wants to throw it at his, jsyk. Here’s his address info: _

Louis sends over a screenshot of Mason’s contact information from his phone. Harry sighs, deeply, disappointed. He’d been hoping to avoid Mason as long as possible but it seems they’re going to meet each other at Louis’ birthday party, of all places. Goody. 

_ Yeah, sure!! Still same time and date? _

_ no :/ mason isnt staying all the way thru christmas hes gonna go out of town so were having it on the 21st instead :( _

What a piece of shit. 

_ We’ll still do something on your birthday and on Christmas. Me, you, and the boys.  _

Harry had gotten closer with Zayn, Liam, and Niall over the past few weeks and he’s sure the boys will be on board. None of them are going home for the holidays and were all planning on spending Louis’ birthday on the 24th anyway, so it’s not that big of a change of plans. 

Louis sends back the smiling emoji with all the little hearts floating around it, like he’s touched Harry would offer to spend his birthday and Christmas with him on their proper days. It just makes Harry more pissed off that Mason would make Louis change the date of his birthday party just because it suited Mason’s timetable better. 

Harry’s going to have to make this an incredible party for Louis just to spite Mason. Harry’s petty like that, sue him.

* * *

 

Harry meets Mason much sooner than he expects. 

He’s walking to class from his apartment, bag slung over his shoulders, when he sees Mason walking towards him. Mason’s got his own backpack over his shoulder and they lock eyes as they pass each other; recognition fills his eyes, quickly followed by rage. Mason grabs Harry’s backpack by the strap and pulls Harry close. 

He should’ve known Mason would confront him at some point. 

“Styles.” Mason says. Fuck. Harry doesn’t even know Mason’s last name. 

“Mason.” Harry replies, trying to keep a straight face and stand up taller. He’s no quitter, but he’s not much of a fighter, either. There’s a bunch of people walking around them and a few that actively yell at them to get off the sidewalk, but Harry won’t back down. 

There’s another dark stretch of  _ something _ in Mason’s eye before it’s gone. 

“I hear you’ve been trying to steal something of mine.” 

Hearing that just proves to Harry his assumptions about Mason are spot on. What a prick. Harry knocks Mason’s hand off of him and turns and walks away.

“What, you too good to talk to me, Styles?” Mason says, swinging his arms out wide and proud, showing off and almost hitting several dozen pedestrians in the meantime. It’s like something out of a movie, Mason standing there in the middle of the snow, ready to fight. 

Harry scoffs. “No, Mason, but we’ve never spoken alone before, didn’t think we were going to now.” 

“Yeah, you know, I’ve been meaning to change that.” 

“Oh have you?” Harry keeps walking, forcing Mason to follow if he wants to continue the conversation. Mason doesn’t. 

He, instead, decides to yell out across the busy sidewalk, “Oh, what? You just gonna try and fuck my boyfriend then?” Harry stops dead in his tracks at that. 

It’s brutal, almost, at that point, having it confirmed that Mason and Louis are together. Harry can hear Mason laughing loud and brash. 

Harry turns straight around and marches back up to Mason, who seems almost amused by the situation. Harry stands tall and gets right up to Mason’s face. 

“For your  _ information _ , no, I haven’t tried anything with Louis. I’m not trying to ‘steal’ him because he’s his own fucking person who can make his own fucking decisions. Why he’s with you is beyond me because you don’t deserve even an atom of Louis to be within a hundred square miles of you.”

Mason smiles, slow and wide. It’s not the reaction Harry was aiming for. It’s almost sinister. 

“Good. Because if you do try something, we’ll eat you alive.”

And he walks away. 

_ We? _ Mason is ridiculous. What, does he have some weird posse waiting around to do his bidding?

By the time Harry gets to his lecture he’s all wet and cold from the snow and so angry and sad at the same time. He spends his lecture completely zoned out, thinking about Mason and Louis. His mind goes to awful places; he can’t stop imagining the way Mason and Louis would fuck and it’s making his day terrible. He doesn’t know why he can’t stop thinking about it but it’s almost obsessive at this point. 

Does Mason pin him down, make him take it? Mason seems the type to be rough. Maybe that’s what Louis likes; maybe he likes being held down and spanked and choked. 

Great, now Harry’s getting hard in the middle of class. Just what he needs.

His mind wanders more, thinking about what Louis is like during sex, and he begins to insert himself into the fantasy. He thinks about his hands holding Louis’ wrists together, thinks about stuffing his cock into Louis’ gorgeous, beautiful ass, thinks about stuffing his fingers in between Louis’ divine lips. 

It comes crashing down when he remembers Mason. God, Harry really had to go and get tangled up with the one boy in the city he couldn’t have. 

And, Jesus, it’s not like anything’s even really happened with Louis since they’ve met. They’ve gone adventuring all over the city, talked to each other about their families, Louis introduced him to his best friends, they comfort each other when they’re worried or sick, they’ve bonded on a deep level, and...okay. Okay. 

Harry is fucked here, 100 percent. 

When his lecture is over he checks his phone, trying to see if there are any updates on Instagram to take his mind off of its intense focus. Instead, he sees some texts from Louis. 

_ mason said he bumped into you today on his way home and talked to you for a bit :) im glad you two are gonna know each other better _

Harry takes a deep breath, in through his nose, out through his mouth. It’s not a text that warrants a response so Harry just puts his headphones in, puts on some Fleetwood Mac, and tries not to think about what it’d be like to kiss Louis anyway.

* * *

 

Harry doesn’t even know what he’s doing. He’s standing outside of Mason’s apartment, with flowers and a gift for Mason’s boyfriend. For  _ Louis _ . Why did he bring flowers? He’s a glutton for punishment, that’s why. He clearly loves the pain of it all. 

Thankfully, Louis’ the one to answer the door when Harry knocks and Louis is absolutely bowled over when he sees the flowers. 

“Harry, these are so lovely,” he coos, pressing his entire face into the bouquet and smelling them deeply. “I love them! Where did you even find sunflowers this time of year?” 

Louis is walking backwards into the apartment, not looking away from his bouquet. He looks so happy to have gotten flowers that Harry knows it’s worth it, even if Mason may have something to say about it. Louis deserves all the sunflowers in the world and Harry will find a way to get them all to him. 

“Just at a florist shop. Had to call around a few places but it wasn’t too hard. Happy birthday.”

It was, in fact, very hard to find sunflowers in the dead of winter in New York City. He’d trekked to a couple florists before giving up and just calling ahead and had to go to fucking Jersey for them, but the way Louis’ smiling right now...he’d do it all again in a heartbeat. 

“Thank you! I don’t think Mason has any vases here but I’ll put them in -- oh! This will do. I’ll transfer them to a vase when I get home tonight.” Louis puts the bouquet in a large, wide-mouthed glass full of water.

Oh? He’s not staying the night? 

“Louis, who is it?” Mason calls from what Harry assumes to be the living room. 

“Harry!” Louis calls back. “Hey, do you want anything to drink? Mason got tons of mixers and shit but I made sure there were sodas, and we have water, obviously.” 

Harry shakes his head no but thanks him for the offer and Louis leads him into the main area of the apartment. Mason’s apartment is a lot more open than Harry assumed; for some reason Harry thought Mason would have some kind of dank, smelly dungeon of an apartment. The reality is that Mason’s apartment is in a perfectly clean, sparkling condition, and it’s almost all one space. There are three doors leading off the main room, one of which is presumably a bathroom considering there wasn’t one in the hall leading to the kitchen. There are open-face light bulbs hung around the room on strings and it actually looks pretty classy. The main room is huge, too.

There’s a group of people near one corner by the record player, bumping some Post Malone (because only Mason would buy a record player and put Post fucking Malone on it), and then opposite them is where the table is, covered in snacks and finger foods. In the two other corners are the television and couch, and a hodgepodge of chairs like they were brought in just for this party, respectively. 

“Mason, Harry brought me flowers! I hope you don’t mind I put them in a cup. I’ll take them when I leave tonight.” 

Mason locks eyes with Harry’s, and he can feel the heat of anger radiating off of Mason. 

“Oh, did you Harry? What kind?” 

The question is obviously directed at Harry but Louis answers regardless. 

“Sunflowers! They’re so pretty, Mace, I love them.” Louis clearly is over the moon about receiving the bouquet, and when he says the last part, he puts a hand on Harry’s shoulders. If looks could kill, Mason would’ve vaporized Harry in an instant. 

Well. If  _ Mason’s _ looks could kill, Harry should clarify.

“That’s nice. Hey, why don’t you go get Harry here a drink?”

“No, thanks.” Harry interrupts. Even if Harry wanted something to drink, he wouldn’t make Louis get it for him. He wouldn’t do it in any situation but they’re here to celebrate Louis’ birthday; why should Louis be getting anything for anyone?

“No, Harry, I insist. Louis will make you whatever.” Mason wraps an arm around Louis’ shoulders and Louis -- well, Louis shrinks a bit. He dims, just slightly. It absolutely tears into Harry’s heart. “Can you get me a jack and coke, babe?” 

Louis nods and goes to do what he asked but Harry stops him. 

“It’s your birthday, Louis, I’ll get it. You shouldn’t be lifting a finger.” As degrading as it would be for Harry to make Mason’s drink. 

“Oh, no, Harry, absolutely not.” Mason interrupts. “You’re the guest! But you’re right, Louis is the one we’re here for. Louis, what would  _ you _ like?”

Harry wonders, just for a brief moment, if Mason’s taken any acting classes before. Because if he has and the teacher actually passed Mason, that teacher deserved to have their license removed. 

“Uh, lemon drop?” Louis asks. He sounds unsure, like he can tell this is definitely out of character for Mason. Mason smiles wide, says “Coming right up,” and doesn’t appear again until he has a lemon drop martini in one hand and his jack and coke in the other. 

And so the drinking begins. Harry isn’t quite sure when he began; maybe around the time Niall arrived with the boys and some beer in tow and insisted Harry try some. But now they’re all toasted, Louis and Mason included. And Louis and Mason -- well. 

Louis and Mason are an interesting dynamic to watch. They don’t seem like a couple, but the way they interact is so strangely intimate Harry can’t see it as much else. The way Mason confidently rests his hand at the small of Louis’ back, or the way Louis will brush against Mason’s shoulders. Mason is walking Louis around the room, showing him off like some sort of trophy; Louis hasn’t been by to see Harry or any of the other boys all night, just Mason’s weird, pretentious friends from the  _ Globe _ . 

“And Louis here actually got the presidential scholarship due to his incredible grades, right? He passed all his finals this semester, too; he’s only got one class left that’s even required for his degree, all the rest he’s taking for fun!” 

Mason’s not even talking to Louis, for fuck’s sake, he’s just talking about him and dragging him around. It’s driving Harry up the wall. 

“Are you graduating this year, then, Louis?” One of Mason’s friends asks and right on cue, Mason answers. 

“Yep, with honors and all.” Mason is beaming but it’s not directed at Louis. It’s bright and over the top and Harry watches as Louis shrugs Mason’s arm off from around his shoulder and motions towards the kitchen, saying something about getting a refill. Niall goes over to the kitchen as well, probably to also get another drink, but also to comfort Louis, as well. 

Harry makes to follow but Mason sidelines him on the way. 

“Harry, doing alright?” Mason asks, definitely sarcastic. “Need anything?” 

Harry finishes off his bottle of beer. “Was just going for another beer.”

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Thanks for your concern but I’ll be fine.” Harry scoffs. It’s not like Mason’s wrong, necessarily, but the fact that Mason’s the one saying it pisses Harry off. 

“I think we need to have a little chat.” Mason grabs his arm and pulls him a bit more aside. “Now, explain to me why you felt the need to bring  _ my _ boyfriend a bouquet of flowers to the party  _ I’m _ throwing for him.” Mason doesn’t let go of Harry’s upper arm, squeezing it tighter and tighter. Mason’s eyes grow darker and Harry knows, now, he’s definitely not hallucinating whatever thing is crawling up around Mason’s eyes. He’s seen it too many times to be a coincidence. Mason is definitely some kind of mutant, no doubt. 

“I brought him flowers because it’s his birthday and I thought he’d like them and make him happy. Which they did.” The  _ and you’re not _ goes unsaid but is understood.

Normally when Harry drinks, he gets clumsy and wistful, maybe a little weepy depending on his week. Today, somehow, he’s become cocky, standing tall and looking Mason directly in the eyes. 

“You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you, Styles.” Mason smirks. 

It’s not a question, it’s a direct challenge, and Harry’s had one too many beers to turn it down.

“I do, actually. You ignore him for days on end over absolutely trivial garbage, you talk over him all the time, you never do anything just for him, you make fun of the things he loves--”

“Oh and you’re the knight in shining armor here to fix everything for him, are you, you little bitch?” 

Harry sets his bottle down on the table behind him. “You know what, Mason, maybe I am! Maybe, just maybe, I  _ would _ be better!”

“You’ve got some fucking nerve comin’ in here and treating my things the way you’ve been.”

“ _ Things _ ?”

“And you think you can just take whatever you want, tell me to treat him like he’s something special,”

“Because he is!” 

“And you’ve got no right to do that! You have no business telling me what to do!”

“If you didn’t treat him like such  _ shit _ , Mason, I wouldn’t have to!”

“Would you both shut the fuck up?”

They both turn to look at Louis, who is bright red and furious. To Harry’s surprise, Louis is looking directly at him, hackles raised. Harry takes a look around the room; everyone is staring at them and the music has been turned down. 

“Harry, can I talk to you?” 

There’s no room for an answer. Louis hauls him off and Harry feels like a little schoolboy being dragged to the principal’s office by the ear; they go into one of the bedrooms and Harry sees a few picture frames of Mason and presumably Mason’s family. Harry hates knowing that Louis is comfortable enough in Mason’s apartment that he brought Harry into this room without asking permission. 

Louis whirls around the second Harry shuts the door behind him. 

“What the  _ fuck _ was that?”

Harry just stares at him, unsure of how to respond. 

“He’s throwing me a birthday party at his own apartment and you just fucking fight with him? Like you have any _ right _ ?” 

God, there’s that word again. 

“I’ve got every right to defend you, Louis, he treats you like absolute shit. He just comes in and out of your life at his own will--”

“The way Mason and I are is none of your business--”

“It absolutely is my business, Louis, he can’t treat you like that! You shouldn’t have to deal with that! God, Louis, I just -- I just want you to be  _ happy _ . He doesn’t make you happy. I want to make you happy.” 

Louis’ face breaks a little at that and he settles a bit. 

“And how do you expect to do that? Got some fucking magic wand to fix everything with?” 

Harry’s will crumbles. When he looks back on this moment, he’ll never be quite sure what overtook him, but he’ll be so glad it did. He grabs onto Louis and pulls him into a burning kiss. Harry’s got both hands tucked around Louis’ jaw and Louis, fuck, Louis melts into the embrace, wrapping his arms around Harry’s neck and whining into the kiss. 

Harry backs him up into Mason’s desk, taking a small amount of satisfaction at the fact that a couple things topple over. Louis moans when his back collides with the edge of the desk and it’s like Harry’s crazed; he grabs Louis’ thighs and lifts him up onto the desk, spreading Louis’ legs and fitting himself in the slot easily. Louis responds in kind by wrapping his legs around Harry’s waist. 

Harry can’t resist moving his hands low on Louis’ waist; it’s like some instinct at the back of his mind telling him to pull Louis as close as humanly possible. Harry moves his mouth down Louis’ neck and Louis folds, tilting his head to the side to allow Harry as much access as he wants. And, God, does Harry want. 

Louis mumbles Harry’s name amongst his moans and Harry has one burning thought that he hopes Mason can hear them. Harry moves his hands lower, lower still, grasping Louis’ gorgeous ass in his hands and moving Louis’ hips against his own. He growls, feeling Louis’ hard cock press to his. 

There’s a brief knock on the door before it opens and Niall walks in. Both Harry and Louis separate quickly, faces flushed and lips bitten red and Harry wants Louis to look like this at all times. 

Niall stares at them for a long moment. 

“Mason’s looking for you, Lou.” He walks back out, leaving them. 

Louis hops down from the desk and fixes his rumpled shirt rapidly, running his fingers through his hair. He then turns around and proceeds to fix up the desk. 

Harry admits, his heart breaks, just a little bit. 

“Are you really going back out there?” Harry asks. His voice is hoarse and just over the edge of too emotional. 

Louis turns to look at him. He looks so sad. 

“It’s complicated, Harry.”

Harry’s face sours. 

“Right. Got it.” 

Harry’s good enough for a quick fix in a back room but not enough for Louis to be with him. Louis clearly made his choice. He walks out, bypassing everyone without a word, and goes back home.

* * *

 

He doesn’t talk to or see Louis for four months. He spends his time following Super Squad, writing reports, doing school work, and going out to clubs with Nick. He doesn’t go see anywhere nice in the city, doesn’t see any of the boys because he knows they’d just tell him to talk to Louis, and he wishes, above all, that Louis would reach out. 

He never does. 

But, then, neither does Harry. 

The pink penis mug is still sitting in its wrapped box in Harry’s room, now tucked away at the top of his closet. 

Nick comments a few times on Harry’s misery, encouraging him to go out and meet someone new, but soon enough even Nick gives up. Harry doesn’t  _ want _ to meet someone new. He wants Louis. 

He decides one weekend to go back home. It’s just going to be for the weekend and then he’ll go back to school, finish up exams, and he’ll be fine. It’ll all be  _ fine _ . He tells Maggie he won’t be there this weekend and he skips his lecture on Friday and he’ll just have to skip on Monday as well. He can’t afford a flight home this last minute so he books a train ride down to Atlanta and his mom will pick him up at the station and drive him the rest of the way. The train ride is long and exhausting -- almost a full day -- but he gets there in one piece. He spends the first day at home in the kitchen with his mom and they bake everything under the sun: pies and breads, tarts and cakes. 

Harry had expected a full blown intervention the moment he’d walked through the house. Thankfully, it isn’t until dinner when his mom decides to have an interview.

“So, how’s school going?” Is how she starts off, putting a bite of chicken pot pie in her mouth. So smooth. 

“It’s going alright. Keeping up with everything. I have a 3.6 right now.”

This semester especially has seen his grades rise drastically. Without Louis filling up his time he’s had to fill it with studying and writing. He tries to tell himself it’s better this way. 

“That’s great Harry! And the internship? Not getting into any trouble?” 

Harry’s pointedly avoided telling her about all of his injuries and mishaps since moving to the city. Anne watches the news every night so he’s sure she’s seen the footage but so long as she thinks he’s safe behind the camera then he’s good. 

“Yeah! The editor in chief, Maggie, she really likes me. I think I’ll actually be offered the job at the end of the year.”  He knows he doesn’t sound thrilled about it and she catches on. 

“Is that something you want?”

And isn’t that the million dollar question. If she’d asked him months ago, he’d have said yes in a heartbeat. He’d have said he’d fallen in love with the city, had fallen in love with his job, had met a boy he could someday fall in love with, too. But now he isn’t sure he wants to stay in New York, and with Fisk’s shadow looming over him larger and larger every day, it’s becoming less likely that he’ll stay past graduation next year. 

“I’m not sure.” 

Anne puts her glass down and places her hand over his. 

“You don’t have to give up everything over a boy, Harry.”

Harry’s startled enough by her statement to pull his hand back from hers. 

“Am I really that obvious?” 

“Well, over Thanksgiving, you could only talk about work and that boy Louis. And you haven’t mentioned him in quite some time…I made my own assumptions. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Harry grimaces. He does want to tell her but he knows what she’s going to say already. 

“Alright, I will. But...before you say anything when I’m done, just know that I already know it’s bad.” Anne raises her eyebrows a bit but motions for him to continue as she takes a sip of wine. “We’re not talking right now because. Um. Well more or less because I got in a fight with his boyfriend.” 

Anne spits out her drink. Harry quickly grabs a napkin and helps clean up while she coughs a bit. When she finally gets her breath back, she begins admonishing him immediately. 

“Harry Edward Styles, I did  _ not _ raise you to break up--”

“I know, momma, I know. I  _ know _ . He didn’t,” Harry’s voice breaks a bit and he has to sit back down. “He made his choice. It was loud and clear and made me feel awful about everything. So I’ve left him alone.” 

“What did he say?” 

“Well...not much. His boyfriend is just -- Christ, he’s just terrible, y’know? All possessive and uppity and thinks he owns Louis or something. And I was trying to defend Louis and then Louis got mad that I was fighting with his boyfriend and. And then we. Um. Well...” 

Anne raises her eyebrows at Harry’s bright red face. 

“Not, like, a lot, okay, but...stuff. Mainly kissing. And then we got interrupted and he essentially went back off to his boyfriend immediately and we haven’t spoken since.”  

“Alright, but what did he  _ say _ ? Did you ask to be with him? Did he say he was going back to him for good?” She presses. 

Harry has to think back on that night and go over it bit by bit. 

“No. I never asked him to make a choice...I just asked if he was going back to the other room and he said ‘It’s complicated.’ Then I left.” 

“Without giving him a chance to explain?” 

Harry doesn’t really have an answer for her.

* * *

 

When Harry gets back to campus on Monday evening, Ed and Niall are waiting outside his door for him. Harry hasn’t seen much of them since the party in December and it’s now the beginnings of April, apart from the occasional sighting on campus. He half-wonders if this is some kind of elaborate April Fools Day prank on him. They both look unassuming, like they’ve just come out of lecture, their backpacks slung over their shoulders. 

They don’t say anything when he goes to unlock his door so it’s now upon him to make the awkward hellos. 

“Hey.” Harry says, doing that weird head nod he sees Niall do sometimes. That ‘sup movement all straight men seem to embody effortlessly. Niall does it right back. 

“Hey. Where were you this weekend?” Ed asks as Harry unlocks the door. Ed goes inside first, taking Harry’s unspoken invitation. 

“Went back home to visit my momma.” 

Ed hums in acknowledgement, looking around the room in nooks and crannies, digging into all of Harry and Nick’s belongings. Niall rummages through the fridge, even going so far as to unscrew some light bulbs and putting them back inside. Harry is so stunned he lets them carry on for perhaps a bit too long before speaking up. 

“Um...may I ask what’s going on?” Harry asks. “Not that I don’t love--”

“We’re throwing a party!” Ed yells back from Nick’s room. Jesus, is nothing off limits? Ed quickly emerges into the hallway, making big eyes at Harry and waving around some kind of...device. “Do you want to come?” 

Ed hands him the electric device. It’s small, like,  _ really _ fucking small, and Harry can see that it’s blinking at him. Fuck.  _ Fuck _ . He drops it on the ground and stomps it, crushing it easily. 

“I’d love to come. When is it?” Harry can see now what’s going on. Someone’s bugged his apartment with microphones, for who knows how long. Harry moves to his room, opening up his cabinets and unscrewing anything and everything. 

“Friday, Louis’ throwing it.” 

Oh, they’re gonna do this  _ now _ . 

“He’s missing you, y’know.” Niall says, apparently done in the kitchen as he moves to the bathroom. Harry grabs a mic from under his lampshade and breaks it. Ed finds one behind a picture frame in the hall and does the same. 

“Oh, he does, does he?” Harry seriously doubts it. Louis’ probably off on some swanky date with Mason right now, celebrating some anniversary or other while Mason brags about how rich and powerful he is. 

“Of course he does, you two were best friends.

“What happened between Louis and I is none of y’alls business.” 

“And that’s fair, but, like, it also is our business. You and Louis, man, you were--”

“A flash in the pan, Ni. Louis had his chance and lost it.” 

“And you don’t think he deserves another chance? Maybe to give an explanation?”

“What needs explaining?” Harry bursts out. They’re in the living room now, turning over the couch. “Louis went back to Mason the second he came a-calling. I’d call that an obvious decision.”

“Dude, you’ve got to work out some issues with your pride.”

“ _ My _ pride?  _ Mine _ ?” There’s nothing under the couch and that’s the last spot to check for anything. “My house has been fucking bugged and y’all are worried I’m too invested in my pride. And can y’all explain how y’all even  _ knew _ my house was bugged?” 

Niall and Ed look at each other, and back to Harry. 

“You haven’t outed anyone’s identity yet, right?” Ed asks. Niall doesn’t even flinch so he must know about Fisk as well. 

“You think Fisk has something to do with this? Like, keeping tabs on me?” 

Niall shrugs. “Or on us. He probably saw us come over one too many times.”

Harry’s confused. “Why would he want to keep an eye on y’all as well?” 

“What, you haven’t figured it out yet?” Ed laughs, a little shocked burst like he wasn’t expecting it. When he sees Harry’s face, Ed quiets down. “Ah, you’re serious.” 

“Yes, I’m serious. Are y’all in some kinda trouble? Are the police after you?” 

Niall shakes his head as Harry gets more and more worked up. 

“No, no, and no. Well. Maybe yes. Technically.” 

“What do you mean  _ maybe _ ?” 

Niall looks at Ed, and Ed looks at Niall. They both take a deep breath and motion with their heads towards Harry a couple times. 

“We’re sure, right?” Ed asks and Niall says yes. “Because there’s no going back.”

“Ed, Liam said to do this.”

“Yeah, but Louis doesn’t know, and that’s a little unfair, right?”

“Jesus, Louis doesn’t know  _ what _ ?” Harry bursts out.

“Um. Well. I’m Animal and Ed’s Boom. Zayn is Fankaar and Liam is Cyber.” Niall states, far too bluntly than the situation warrants. 

To Harry’s credit, he doesn’t pass out. He does, however, take a swift seat down on his couch. After months and months and months of combing over every single grainy cell-phone found footage video he could find on Super Squad, and here they are, just...in front of him. Telling him their names. And they’re people he knows, people he’d considered friends. 

“I told you he’d freak out.” Niall mumbles. Ed goes to the kitchen and Harry can hear running water and Ed comes back to the living room with a glass of water for him. God, this is so fucking crazy. 

“You blew out my eardrum.” Harry says. Ed scrunches his nose. 

“What? Just now?” 

“No.” Harry laughs. What even is his life. “When I first moved here. The day of my interview for the SCLU. You blew out my eardrum when y’all fought Electro.” He drinks some water from the glass Ed hands him. 

“Oh. Uh, sorry, man.” 

There’s a couple minutes of silence while they allow Harry to absorb this new information and for Harry to gather his racing thoughts. 

“So...Ed. Your internship last year?” It’s not even a real question but Ed understands anyways. 

“Yeah, so. I got the internship in hopes of, like, proving superheroes do more harm than good. I’ve been dealing with the sonic sound almost all my life and when Liam approached me about joining, I thought, sure, I should be doing something worthwhile with this stupid gift I’d been given. So I joined the Squad and the SCLU at around the same time and um. Well, I think it was my first or second week Jameson pulled me aside and introduced me to Fisk.”

Harry nods. “It was the same for me. My first week, right in the lobby.” 

“Right, right. After you and I had our talk a few months back, I met up with some previous interns as well -- none of them took the full time job because they had also all been threatened by Fisk. A lot of them even went so far as to move out of the city entirely. I probably would have, too, if I wasn’t...well.”

“Wasn’t a superhero with a secret identity, set on saving New York City.” Harry fills in. Ed looks a bit uncomfortable but nods. 

“Yeah, that. Anyways, it was hard to track them all down, but they all said they were scared pretty much shitless. I did meet one girl -- do you remember Illuminate? And when he got revealed?”

Harry has to think a moment, but then it comes to him. 

“Ah, yeah, Shawn something. That was all over national news, I remember it was the headline in my town’s local paper. He was from Canada and had to get deported.” 

“Shawn Mendes, yeah. Turns out he was discovered by an SCLU intern, Camila Cabello. They had been friends but she thought the pressure was too much and turned him over to Fisk anyways. Really nasty.” 

“I would never--”

“We know you wouldn’t, Harry, that’s not why this is important.” Niall interrupts. “It’s important because Fisk will stop at nothing until heroes are all revealed and he can run the city how he wants using his goons. He controls every villain. He controls Mysterio, Electro, Sandman, Kraven the Hunter, all of them, they do what he tells them to. They call him the Kingpin because he’s basically got his own mob.”

“And you know this how?”

“Liam. He’s been running surveillance for a long time now. We just need you to know you have to stall him. We’re here now because we’re close to exposing him and we can’t afford you to fuck it up.” Niall says.

“No offense.” Ed butts in but Niall laughs it off. 

“No, full offense intended. We know how important this job is to you but it’s more important to the entire city for this to go as smoothly as possible. No fuck ups.” 

Harry stares at them both. 

“So the fate of the city lies in my hands?” 

They both break into uproarious laughter, bending over. 

“What do you think this is, a Superman comic? Get over yourself, dude.” Niall wipes his tears away. 

If only Harry could find any amusement here.

* * *

 

As it turns out, Ed and Niall were serious about there being a party at Louis and Liam’s apartment and Harry is forced to attend (and he means that in the most serious of ways; Niall turned into a bear in Harry’s living room and threatened to tear his arm off and Harry didn’t want to see if Niall was kidding or not). There’s no sign of Mason so far, thank Christ. 

Louis and Liam’s apartment is blissfully smaller than Mason’s, meaning there are far fewer guests. There’s the boys, obviously, Ed, a couple of Louis’ pals from NYU and Liam’s longtime on/off again girlfriend Felicia Hardy. 

Louis and Harry make eye contact as soon as Harry walks in the room and it’s only marginally dramatic. There’s no spotlight trained on Harry, no swelling orchestral music, but it’s close. Louis’ whole body reacts when he spots Harry, swaying in his direction like he wants to come over right away. 

It’s strange, how much and how little has changed in the past few months. Louis’ perfectly clean shaven right now but his hair is much longer, his cheekbones accentuated by a tiny little curl that swoops against one of them. 

He looks tired. 

Harry goes through a door into the kitchen to make himself a drink. His hands are shaking when he pour out a shot (maybe he puts in three, it’s fine) of vodka into the glass of orange juice and he ends up spilling some onto the counter. 

“Shit,” Harry mutters, looking around for a cloth or paper towels to clean up. Instead, when he turns around, he meets Louis. “Hi.”

Louis smiles, just a bit, belying how nervous he is. 

“Hey, Harry. How’ve you been?” 

This is terrible conversation. They used to be able to talk about anything and everything and now Harry isn’t even really sure how to respond to Louis’ simple question. But, best to rip off the proverbial bandage than to waffle around. 

“Um...alright, I guess. Went down to see my family over the weekend.”

“I can tell.” 

Harry scrunches his eyebrows together. “You can?” 

“Yeah...your accent. It always gets deeper when you, uh, when you’re just from home.”

Harry nods, a bit slow. It’s certainly not the first time Louis’ brought it up, but for some reason, right now, right here, it feels different. Like Louis’ reminding him of just how much they do know each other, as though Harry could ever forget. 

“Yeah, yeah it does. It was nice to get away from the city a bit, though.”

Louis hums instead of giving a real response. It’s tense in this tiny space, the door shutting out the noise of the group outside the kitchen. It’s like they’re alone. It makes Harry nervous, realizing this, because the last time they were alone Harry had kissed him, and Louis had kissed right back. Harry’s afraid he’ll give in again. Harry has never thought of himself as a homewrecker, but here he is, contemplating it. 

“Where’s Mason?” For some reason, it’s the only question he can think of to ask. Louis looks confused as to why he’s asking. 

“Went on assignment to San Francisco. Doing a report on some aeronautics company. He won’t be back until July, maybe August, I think. Left a couple weeks ago.” Louis scrunches his nose. “Why?”

“You know why I’m asking, Louis.”

“I know you don’t like him, Harry, but he’s important to me. I wish you’d try more rather than fucking storming off and not talking to anybody for months.” Louis’ voice is acrid, belying how bitter he must’ve been these past few months. 

“Louis, the way he treats you--”

“Is none of your fucking business, Harry. I know my worth. I know who I am. I want Mason to stay. If you can’t deal with that then I’d suggest walking right back out that door.” He’s firm, standing as tall as he can, straightening his shoulders. Louis has always been able to fill up a room with his energy and seeing him do so with his stature is a little intimidating. 

“I just want you to be happy. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

“Like ghosting me for months?”

Harry sighs. 

“That’s fair. I should’ve communicated better with you about...what I want and what I expected. I’m sorry. Genuinely. I know I need to work on...my pride, I guess, or maybe just my jealousy. I was hurt that night and...I should’ve just talked to you about it instead of running away. I really regret doing that.”

“Good.” Louis doesn’t say he forgives him and honestly, Harry doesn’t blame him. They’re in a rough situation and clearly need to communicate better. 

“Can I, um, can I ask why you kissed me back that night?” Harry can’t resist asking. It’s been bothering him ever since that night, wondering what could bring Louis to do such a thing. And especially after this conversation, where Louis is obviously intent on continuing his relationship with Mason, Harry’s curiosity grows stronger. 

Louis takes a few moments to think about his response. 

“You treat me really well, Harry. You make me feel like I deserve a lot more than what I have, and you celebrate a lot of little things in people. You make me feel really happy.” 

It’s not really an answer but then, it is. Harry hears this and makes another promise to himself: however Louis wants him, Harry will give it. If Louis wants Harry to be a reprieve to his relationship, Harry will do it. If Louis wants nothing more to do with him, Harry will leave. 

“I’ve missed you.” 

It comes out unbidden from his lips, something from his deep subconscious needing to shout it out. 

“I’ve missed you, too.” Louis reciprocates in a small whisper, like it’s a secret. Maybe it is. “I’ve missed you quite a bit.” 

Harry takes a huge gulp of his vodka with juice to avoid answering as honestly as he wants. 

“I’ve, um. Been thinking.”

“Oh?” Louis’ voice is hopeful and his eyes are lighting up. Harry never wants to take that look off his face. 

“About us.”

“What about us?” Louis bites his lip. 

“I…” Harry has to really think about this. He sees the way Louis’ looking at him and despite everything, despite Mason, despite Fisk, Harry wants to try. God, he’d always been taught that only terrible people cheat on their significant others, and only terrible people knowingly enter into relationships with people already in relationships. But maybe there’s some kind of gray area in the middle. Like people in Louis’ situation; with a boyfriend who clearly is at least borderline abusive and manipulative and Louis sees no way out of the relationship. 

Harry wants to be that way out. 

“Whatever you want to start...I’ll be here.”

Louis’ lips quirk, like he’s trying to stop a smile but it’s already taking over his face. 

“Okay.”

“My only rule is we can’t tell the boys.” Harry will not make them keep this secret for them. Not on top of everything else happening in their lives. 

“Why?” Louis looks disappointed and a little shocked. 

“I don’t want to complicate things. But that’s my only rule. Everything else will be up to you.” 

“So...nobody knows?” 

“Nobody.” 

It’s curious. Why does Louis want people to know he’s cheating on his boyfriend? Maybe since Mason is out of town he knows his friends wouldn’t care. Harry isn’t going to ask questions, though. This is all Louis’ call. 

Zayn walks in, loud and laughing, Liam clinging to his back. They both see Harry and Louis standing across from each other, alone in the kitchen, and halt. 

“Everything alright?” Zayn asks both of them, but Harry looks to Louis to answer. 

Louis nods. 

“Yeah, Zayn, everything’s alright. Everything’s great.” 

They both smile at each other.

* * *

 

They don’t immediately jump back into things. Harry wants to take it slowly. With Mason being across the country for the next few months, they can afford to take their time getting used to each other again. They start back up their dates at Mickey’s and Jade and Al throw them a little celebration upon their return. 

It’s tentative. Harry knows they’re out in public and away from eyes, but...his apartment was tapped. He doesn’t want to hold Louis’ hand in public, doesn’t want to make him more of a target than he probably already is. On top of that, it’s still so new they haven’t spent much time together in private. It’s almost the end of April and finals are fast approaching, and with finals come graduation, and with graduation come Louis’ increasing stress levels. 

They spend most of their time at the diner or the library. Louis’ picked up some extra shifts at the Coffee Bean as well, cutting out any time for them to spend with each other just doing something nice, just being with each other without any outside pressures. Harry’s been doing yoga almost every morning just to stave off the stress.

Harry sees Louis across the third floor of the library, books spread across a table and his hand steady highlighting notes. He walks over and sits down, plopping his backpack down in another chair. Louis is so engrossed in his work he barely offers a hello and Harry just lets him continue; breaking Study Mode has led to disaster in the past. 

After a couple hours of working in relative silence, Harry’s stomach rumbles, but he really doesn’t want to leave. 

“Do you think they Postmates to public spaces?” He asks out loud. 

“Don’t see why not.” Louis shrugs. “This place has an address, right? Just take your bag down and shove the food in there so the librarians don’t see.”

Harry nods and opens up the app, ordering a couple sushi rolls and some Haagen-Dazs from the grocery store down the road. He throws in some gummy worms, chips, and a sandwich for Louis. He gets the notification the order is being dropped off about half an hour later and he takes his empty backpack down to the front of the library and puts all the food inside, thanking the driver and making sure he gives a nice tip through the app. He then takes it all back upstairs. 

When he gets back to the table and starts taking the food out, he puts Louis’ items on his side of the table, and Louis looks up, surprised and happy. He smiles when he sees the gummy worms, grabbing the bag and opening it, diving into them first before his other food. 

“Eating dessert first is bad manners, Tomlinson.” Harry teases, pulling out his ice cream and bamboo spoon from his reusable cutlery set. Louis just rolls his eyes and eats a gummy worm like a kid eats pasta, holding it up in the air and dropping it into his mouth. He chews happily but when Harry pops the lid off of his non-dairy chocolate and peanut butter ice cream his eyes go wide. 

“Hey, not fair! Why did only you get fancy ice cream?” 

Harry pauses, halfway through unpeeling the paper from the container. 

“Oh, um, sorry, I didn’t -- I didn’t think you’d, um,” Harry stutters, caught off guard. “It’s non-dairy so I didn’t...like. Think you’d be interested.”

“Well, you were talking to me about your dairy farm, remember? Swore off cow’s milk.” 

“Oh.” Harry’s shocked by the admission. “I mean...they do the same to, like, goats.”

“Yeah, but they don’t forcibly impregnate almonds, Harold, keep up.” He takes a bite of his sandwich, cheese and ham, mayo and lettuce, tomatoes and olive oil. 

Harry nods. It’s such a Louis thing to do, really, to hear and learn of someone’s hardships and to do his part to alleviate those hardships. 

“There’s cheese on your sandwich.” Is all Harry can think to respond with. 

Louis stops chewing a moment and looks down. 

“I mean...baby steps, right?” He grins, all cheek, and takes another bite.

* * *

 

Harry wants to do something nice for him. Take him out somewhere real nice for dinner, for once. Take him out on a date, kiss him a little, tell him he’s beautiful. He calls around to a few restaurants he can afford, finally snagging a reservation for two at 8:00 on a Friday night two weeks before finals. That’ll cue about a month of them being...whatever they are, and the month anniversary be an easy excuse for a date, Harry hopes.  

He goes into his meeting on Saturday with high hopes. It’s almost the end of his internship; this is his second to last meeting. He’s fairly confident they’ll choose him to stay on with the SCLU, but with that confidence comes a niggling worry at the back of his mind about Fisk. He hasn’t produced the results Fisk demanded from him at the start of the year. 

By the time Harry gets up to his floor his confidence has flagged, mind gone into overdrive worrying if he’s going to be driven out of the city by Fisk like so many interns before him. 

By the time Harry gets to the SCLU meeting room and sees Jameson standing by the window and nobody else, his mind halts with fear. Jameson hasn’t noticed him yet, staring out at the beautiful New York City skyline. 

By the time Jameson turns around with a completely blank expression on his face, Harry knows he’s fucked. 

“Have a seat, Sties.”

Harry sits down in the first chair available, not even bothering to correct Jameson on his name. There’s a blank manila folder in the middle of the table, and Harry both does and doesn’t want to know what contents it hides. 

“I’m sure you remember when I introduced you to Wilson Fisk, right?” 

He nods. 

“Great! It’s the end of the year. I can’t help but notice you’ve let us both down so far...do you have any updates on Super Squad?”

Harry can’t help but squirm in his seat. Jameson looks very cartoonish, with his gigantic, dark mustache and graying hair, and yet he’s completely intimidating at the same time. He’s going to have to lie and somehow pull it off. 

“Not right now, sir. I’ve combed over every bit of footage that exists of them and they reveal absolutely nothing of themselves. Every time I see them they’re too quick for me to follow, and they all take off in different directions, not only from each other, but every time they’re in public they’ll scatter a different way. I’ve gone over it a lot and I can’t see any pattern to it. They don’t all always appear, either, which also isn’t a pattern I can detect.”

Harry knows why all of these things happen, of course. They all are in school and have different lecture times. They don’t let Harry in on their plans, of course, but Harry presumes their escape is planned each time. 

“If I may ask, sir...why was this tasked to me? Clearly I have but so many resources.” Harry tries to fish for information on a topic that’s been bothering him since Ed and Niall revealed themselves. If Fisk is such a Kingpin in the underground world of crime, why task a college student with finding out the identities of your enemies?

“Because we’re the  _ Bugle _ , kid. We break everything; there’s not a single paper in the city that finds out anything before we do.”

“Okay...but why me?” 

Jameson pauses for a moment before reaching for the manila folder. He pulls out a single photograph. 

It’s of Ed and Harry, that first afternoon they met, when Ed followed him to that sushi place. 

_ If you haven’t noticed me, how many others do you think are watching? _

He needs to check his apartment again, top to bottom. 

“You’re friends with him, correct?” Jameson asks. 

“Yes, sir. We’ve got mutual friends. He was also an intern last year here, right?” Harry phrases it like a question to make it seem like they’re not very close. 

“He was. Fisk asked him to identify Little Mix. He got nowhere. And here you are, with no results either. Do you think Fisk likes not getting his way, time and time again?”

The words send a sharp chill down his spine. 

“No, sir.”

“Then I’d recommend you step it up.”

Jameson leaves. Christ, it’s like he’s stuck in some fucking movie. Will he be tied up and have his toes pulled off one by one if he can’t produce results?

Bill Price walks into the room as Jameson is leaving, a coffee from Coffee Bean in hand. Harry is taken out of his head upon seeing the logo, wondering who’s working there this morning. He hasn’t gone in quite some time, not since Louis’ birthday. He’d been trying to avoid accidentally running into him there and since he and Louis have reunited he hasn’t picked the habit back up. 

“Congratulations, man.” Bill says, putting his coffee on the table and opening up his briefcase. “I don’t think any interns have been accepted here since I started working here, they always run off scared.” 

“What?” Harry asks, confused and caught off guard. Bill’s sorting through some of his statistics reports, preparing to give his numbers to Maggie when she arrives. 

“The job! Very few interns are actually deserving of it, mind, but even fewer want the job come the end of the internship. You’ll probably get Manhattan, honestly, I think Cindy’s leaving to go to Denver next, what, month, I think? You’re a shoe-in.”

Harry is dumbfounded. 

“I….I got the job?” 

Bill looks up, shocked. 

“Oh, shit, Jameson didn’t say anything? I thought that’s what he was in here for! I didn’t mean to give away the surprise, sorry, man.”

Harry...has the job. Harry has the full-time SCLU job at the  _ Daily Bugle _ . He’s going to get a significant pay raise due to the hazards of the job, he’s going to get benefits like actual health insurance and dental insurance and life insurance, he’ll have job security. 

“You are taking it, right?” Bill asks him, looking expectant. 

Harry thinks back to the boys and how badly he needs to keep Fisk off their trail until this all comes to an end. He thinks about how much danger he’s in and how that could impact his entire future, could impact his life. He thinks about how they probably are only keeping him around because Fisk suspects the boys of being Super Squad and Harry is close with them.

“Of course, Bill.” He replies with a smile. “Can’t leave y’all without any decent working folk, can I?”

* * *

 

Harry swings by Coffee Bean on his way to Mickey’s to pick up his and Louis’ regular iced coffee with normal sugar orders. Leigh Anne’s working this afternoon so he chats with her for a bit and promises to carry on her hellos to Louis. 

By the time he arrives at Mickey’s, Louis’ already there in their booth. The sun is hitting the windows just right and highlights all the curves of his face so beautifully, and Harry is struck, for a moment. He wants to stare at Louis all the time. 

Louis looks up at him and meets Harry’s eyes, smiling at him. He walks over, setting the iced coffees on the table and placing his backpack on the seat beside him. 

“Hey, Lou.” Harry murmurs, sliding Louis’ drink over to him. He lights up when he sees what Harry’s brought him and he takes an obnoxiously long and loud slurp from the straw. 

“Thanks Harry.” 

He feels warm, looking at the way Louis smiles and shines. It feels like Harry should never do anything else in the world other than make Louis happy. 

“You’re welcome.” Harry feels Louis’ feet tap his own and they shamelessly play footsie under the table for the next few minutes while Jade brings their food over. The past couple Saturdays have been pretty fruitless in terms of work done; they spend so much time studying at the library and their own apartments that studying here as well is just exhausting. They spend a few minutes catching up over their meals about the past few days, Louis sharing some horror stories about his shift from hell last night, before Harry brings it up. 

“And then, y’know, this is the second time I’ve made this latte, right? So when I fucking told her there were three fucking shots of espresso in her drink she has the gall to say to me ‘Oh, I totally get it, I worked at Starbucks and I don’t wanna be one of those customers-’ like she wasn’t full well one of those customers already - ‘but there’s no espresso in here and it isn’t sweet enough so could you just put a couple extra shots in of each please?’ So I said fine. No problem. Made a new one with zero espresso and put in like four extra shots of sugar and when she tried it she said it tasted perfect and left!”

“I got us reservations to a restaurant.” 

It’s not a response to Louis’ story, not in the slightest. Harry doesn’t even know why he brings it up then, it just sprung forth. 

Louis looks up at him, surprised, fry halfway to his open mouth. 

“Oh? Where?” 

“Um...Sarabeth’s. It’s, uh, it’s the upper west side location. I know it’s, like, a chain, but--”

“So we’re actually doing this?” Louis breathes out. “Going out?”

Harry isn’t sure how to respond. Haven’t they  _ been _ going out? Louis recognizes Harry’s look of confusion and clarifies himself. 

“It’s just, we haven’t said anything explicitly...I wasn’t sure. You haven’t, um…” Louis looks down, nervously tapping his nails on the table. “Like, kissed me or anything. Which, I don’t ever want to pressure you, never, but...I don’t know. It made me wonder whether or not we discussed anything at all in that kitchen, or if I misunderstood, or--” 

“I’m here. I’ll always be here. No matter what or who else, I wanna stay by your side.” 

Louis smiles, that nice, peaceful smile he makes when he’s really happy, like he’s undone by it. 

“Well...that sounds good to me.” 

They go back to studying for a while. Louis shoves some fries into his face and Harry ignores how that’s definitely an aversion tactic. Louis’ still smiling and blushing all the while and he trains his attention back on his papers; or, at least, he pretends to. When they go to leave that night, they hug goodbye and Louis thanks him again for booking a dinner date for them. 

“You’re welcome. I wanted to get you something nice for graduation. I still can’t believe you’re graduating with honors, that’s so incredible to me. I’m so proud of you for doing that.” 

Harry still wants to kiss him. He just looks so beautiful all the time but especially in the nighttime city lights, his hair lit up and his eyes shining. Harry wants to kiss him always, like a constant need in the back of his mind. 

Louis dashes up and presses a burst of a kiss against Harry’s chin and then steals off into the night. 

Harry doesn’t leave the door to Mickey’s for another few minutes, in a daze, smiling at the direction Louis left in.

* * *

 

The next two weeks pass slowly and Louis gets more and more shifts at work and Harry misses him. It’s so stupid to say because he’s already seen him three times alone this week but it’s never enough. Lectures are dull at this point in the semester; there’s no new material being taught, rather, every one of his classes is in full-fledged review mode. Harry’s lucky this semester, really. Last year he had a class that taught new things up until the class before finals week and they were expected to know that on top of everything else, it was hell. 

But, next week is the last week of class and the week after is finals. Louis will be graduated in a month’s time and Harry will officially be a senior and they’ll be able to relax on into the lazy days of summer. 

Jobs and supervillains blowing up buildings notwithstanding. 

It’s also date night and Harry is going to pull his fucking hair out from stress. He can’t figure out what he wants to wear. Sarabeth’s isn’t exactly ultra fine dining but it is a nicer restaurant than he’s used to. He and Nick have been going through a few outfits, sorting things into yes and maybe piles. Harry’s looking at himself in a tighter button up shirt than he’s used to (but still fairly loose), one his sister got him for Christmas a couple years back; it has his last name embroidered on the left chest pocket. 

“This isn’t too, like, cocky, is it?” Harry asks Nick, looking at himself in the mirror. He paired it with some simple jeans even though he’s been favoring fabric pants lately, just because he doesn’t want to look too out there. 

“Uh, not really but--”

“Maybe I should try something else.”

“Harry, it’s 7:45, shouldn’t you get a move on?” Nick says to him from where he’s stood in the doorway, glancing at his watch. Harry’s heart drops to the floor and he spins, rushing to grab his shoes, not even thinking about how he only has one sock on. 

“Why didn’t you  _ say _ anything?” Harry yells, annoyed, grabbing a random jacket from the closet. “The reservation is at 8:00!” 

“I know.” Nick chuckles, tapping his watch. “I just got tired of you trying on 500 different outfits. You look great, it’s 7:00 on the dot, go pick him up.”

Harry glares at Nick from where he’s stood, halfway out the door with one shoe on. 

“I hate you.” He mutters, only half meaning it. 

“I know, I know,” Nick chuckles, “Go see your boy.”

Harry grumbles to himself almost the entire way to Louis’, using his frustration at Nick’s little prank to air out his nerves for tonight. Louis buzzes him up into his apartment building and Harry takes a deep breath, steeling himself. 

Harry has been wondering for the past two weeks whether or not he should’ve brought Louis flowers but he’s grateful he didn’t when he finally gets to Louis’ door. He probably would’ve dropped them the second he saw Louis dressed in Harry’s own sweater. He’d lost that sweater months ago, before he went home to Georgia for Thanksgiving, even. 

“That’s my sweater.” Harry blurts out. He can’t stop staring at the way it drowns Louis, so much that Louis keeps nervously pushing the sleeves up to free his hands because they hang past his knuckles. 

“Hello to you, too.” Louis laughs. “You left it at Mickey’s forever ago.”

He just nods, too dumbfounded to respond. 

“Don’t I look good?” Louis asks, coy. Harry’s breath leaves his body as Louis folds himself to be tinier, posing in the sweater a bit and batting his eyelashes some. 

“You always look good.” He croaks. Louis just laughs at his answer, unfolding from his pose and strolling past Harry confidently. Louis Tomlinson is a many-sided puzzle that Harry wants to take apart. 

The sun is setting when they get outside, the rays stretching out between the buildings, kissing them gently with its last vestiges of warmth. Louis makes a bit of fun of Harry’s outfit on the walk there, laughing at how Harry really has a shirt with his last name embroidered on the pocket. Harry knows he doesn’t mean it, though, not with how often Louis brushes his hands against the silk fabric. 

Sarabeth’s is a nice place, too, a very open atmosphere. The hostess greets them when they walk in, a little early but she’s able to seat them right away which is nice. They get a seat by the window, getting to watch the citizens and tourists of NYC walk by. They’ve been sharing brief stories about their week with each other, like they hadn’t seen each other two days ago and won’t see each other again tomorrow. Louis’ going over his hell class this semester.

“Yeah, so the professor hasn’t had any revision at all, he just keeps plowing on through new shit. He taught an entirely new chapter to us today! And he’s going to test us on it on the final!” Louis’ complaining as their waiter sets down their food. 

Harry doesn’t like their waiter; he looks at Louis for too long. Harry really needs to reign it in on his jealousy issues, it’s not healthy. 

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” Their waiter asks, directed completely at Louis. Okay, okay, maybe Harry isn’t over exaggerating anything. He barely resists grabbing Louis’ hand in a harsh display of masculinity. 

“No, but thanks.” Louis smiles back at the waiter for just a moment, grabbing his water and taking a sip before diving right back into the story he’d been telling Harry. The waiter’s smile is frozen on his face, glancing awkwardly back at Harry before leaving a few moments later. 

Harry loves watching him talk. He could just sit and admire him all day and all night, easily. Against the backdrop of NYC lights he looks ethereal, like a little sun star. 

“Are you even listening to me, Harry?” Louis asks, exasperation filling out his tone yet somehow remaining playful. 

“Of course. Cellular regeneration and how your professor decided to add in a new chapter on how that plays into mutations in DNA right before the final.” 

Louis’ smile slips a bit in surprise. 

“You were listening to me ramble.” 

“I always pay attention to you, Louis.”

He looks pleased, hearing that from Harry. 

It’s a quiet first date. Harry feels like they’re both at that in-between stage of nervous yet comfortable, calm yet dying to impress. Harry doesn’t want to lose Louis and Louis doesn’t want to lose Harry, so here they are, trying to prove that to each other. 

Their feet touch under the table. Their hands caress each other’s fingers, so soft. Their eyes meet time and time again in some tentative game neither of them are sure how to play. Louis locks eyes with Harry’s while his foot lifts slow, slow, slowly up Harry’s calf and thigh, stopping just at Harry’s crotch. Not pressing, just resting. Harry almost chokes on his burger and Louis laughs, indulgent, sweet, mischievous. 

They don’t wait for the dessert they ordered. They barely even wait for a cab to take them back to Louis’ apartment. They certainly don’t wait to double check that Liam is definitely still out for the night before Harry presses Louis up against the front door the moment it closes, shoving his thigh between Louis’ legs and  _ pressing _ . 

“God -- Harry -- fuck,” Louis keeps muttering all these nonsense words between kisses, crying out when Harry bites down on his bottom lip. 

Harry’s desperate, right now, wanting to get as close to Louis as soon as possible. His hands grapple with the ends of Louis’ (Harry’s) sweater, pushing them up over his stomach before getting distracted by how good his tummy looks and Harry can’t resist going down and biting it. Louis’ hands grab his hair as Harry presses kiss after kiss to his sweet, beautiful stomach. 

“Baby, you taste so good,” Harry says, biting down again, hearing Louis’ whimper. 

“You gonna do somethin’ down there, Styles?” Louis breathes out. 

Harry hears the dare and responds as any red-blooded man in his early twenties would. He unbuckles Louis’ belt and helps him out of his underwear and pants and pulls Louis’ cock into his mouth. Harry has always had an oral fixation; he loves putting his mouth to good use. His favorite activities during sex and sucking cock and eating someone out. He relishes the feeling of Louis’ cock in his mouth, the heavy weight of it on his tongue. He loves seeing how fast he can get someone to come just by sucking them. 

Today, he takes his time. He licks and tugs and sucks and hears Louis’ moans, loves the way Louis tugs on his hair, pulling him closer and closer. Eventually Louis gets just on the edge of too intense and Harry pulls off, hearing a whine of protest above him. 

“I was so close.” Louis says, pouting down at him. Harry just smiles, standing back up, and kisses him right on his sweet mouth. He’s an amazing kisser, not that he didn’t know that already, but it’s great because Harry loves kissing. His last boyfriend didn’t like to kiss during sex. 

“You’re just going to have to wait, baby. I have something else in mind.”

Louis’ smile turns positively salacious, so wickedly dirty that Harry can hardly wait to stuff him full. He helps Louis out of all of his clothes, Louis doing the same for him, and they leave them in a path leading to Louis’ bedroom.

* * *

 

They come twice, each, that night.

* * *

 

_ hey, do you want some Wafel and Dinges? _

He’s just walked out of his last final exam and feels like an enormous weight has been lifted off his shoulders. The text had been sent in the middle of his final and he’s about to respond when he receives another, a picture of Louis outside the Wafel and Dinges stand in front of Central Park, his mouth around a forkful of waffle. It’s so darling and sweet. 

_ took too long, got some myself!!!  _ Is the caption sent along with it. 

_ No fair, _ he sends back,  _ I was taking an exam :( I deserve wafel and dinges for my hard work _

_ hmmmmm….maybe. ill consider it. another day, though, im already gone.   _

_ :( _

_ :) _

_ I’ve got an assignment out in New fucking Jersey tonight. Want to join me? _

Louis promptly responds with the throwing up emoji, the sick emoji, the disgusted emoji, and a thumbs up. Harry smiles down at his phone, accidentally bumping into someone while not paying attention and getting a “fuck you, pal” sent his way. Gotta love the big city. 

_ Is that a yes? _

_ only if u buy me some fancy ice cream.  _

_ Done. Meet me at the library at 5.  _

Harry swings by a store after he schedules an Uber pickup, grabbing a coconut milk sea salt and caramel for Louis and an almond milk chocolate fudge for himself. He double checks he has his cutlery pack in his bag for himself and grabs a set at the store for Louis as well. As he leaves the grocery section he sees the clothing department, looking at his watch; he’s got some time to spare. He just finished his last final and got accepted full time at the  _ Bugle _ , he should celebrate. 

He starts looking around at all the clothes, flipping through different shirts. He comes across a silk purple shirt, a little loose, a little drapey, and so stunning he has to get it immediately. It’s not even too much money, considering. His phone starts ringing in the check out line; it’s Maggie. 

“Hey, Maggie, I’m going out to Union City at 5 to interview that shop owner tonight. I’m bringing a friend along, is that okay?”

“Sounds great, perfectly fine. And congratulations on your finals, Harry.” She says, but she sounds pretty distracted. 

“Thanks ma’am.” There’s a distinct pause and Harry struggles to fill it. “Was there something you needed, ma’am?” 

“Have you watched or heard the news that’s been coming out of San Francisco by any chance, Harry?” 

He thinks back, trying to recall anything noteworthy out of San Francisco recently. Ant-Man is the only notable superhero in the city since Black Widow’s disappearance, there’s not much to keep an eye on out that way.

“Like, other than Ant-Man?” 

“Yes. It seems that San Francisco has a new villain. I want you to keep an eye on the development, Styles. It’s nothing major right now but it could be. The guy’s calling himself Venom.”

* * *

 

They’re in the backseat of the Uber, eating their ice cream, when Harry decides to whip out his phone and do some light research on Venom. 

“So, why Union City? Thought the  _ Daily Bugle _ only focused on NYC.” Louis asks, scooping some ice cream into his mouth. Harry scrolls through some articles on his phone, stopping to watch a video on mute that showcases a broken store window and a destroyed car, the aftermath left from Venom’s most recent rampage. 

“Owner of a vape shop that was destroyed a few months back in Queens just reopened there. We’re gonna talk about the, like, cost devastation of having to move across state lines and stuff, and like, why he had to open in New Jersey because of the superhero problem and stuff.” 

Louis hums, taking another bite. 

“That sucks. Who was it?”

Harry scrolls to another video, this one only a few seconds long, just enough to catch a blurry, hulking black form running through the streets of San Francisco.

“Oh, shit, is that the guy?” Louis asks, peering over at looking at Harry’s phone. 

“What?” 

“Is that the guy that destroyed the vape shop?”

“Oh, no, this is in San Francisco. My editor called and said I should research this new villain, calls himself Venom. He looks like an alien.” 

Louis’ quiet, staring at the video replaying over and over again. 

“This is in San Francisco?” 

“Yeah, why?”

“When was it?”

“I don’t know, uh,” Harry quickly looks at the timestamp on the video, “it was uploaded this morning.” 

Louis doesn’t respond, just whips his phone out and dials a number. It rings for a while, so long that it prompts Louis to leave a message. 

“Hey, Mason, it’s Louis. I just saw the news. Please call me back and tell me you’re okay. I miss you. Call me as soon as you can.”

* * *

 

Harry barely remembers the interview. He remembers the basic talking points, of course, and the tears the owner’s boyfriend shed when they talked about how they’d had to take out a huge loan and weren’t sure if they could pay it back.

He remembers Mason calling Louis back just as the interview was about to begin. He remembers Louis outside the entire time, on the phone with Mason. He remembers watching Louis laugh on the phone with him.  

He remembers the way he fucks Louis into the mattress later that night, harder and harder and harder until they’re both coming, breathless. 

He tries his best to not let his jealousy wrangle a hold on himself, but he fears it’s a losing battle.

* * *

 

Graduation week is hectic for seemingly everyone but Harry’s group of friends. Harry and Niall are the only ones not graduating, everyone else moving on to things better than NYU and all of its offerings. Harry and Louis have been avoiding helping get ready all morning, wasting time making out in Louis’ room until the very last minute.

They’re on the train, now, heading towards the ceremony with a few other last minute attendees. Louis isn’t even fully in his graduation uniform, the gown hanging off of him unzipped and his cap in Harry’s hands. They’d spent all night decorating the cap, painting tiny little penises and middle fingers in a pattern that isn’t detectable at a distance. Louis’ on the phone with his mom, trying to help her find out where to go and where to sit. 

“No, mom, you’re on the mezzanine...well, tell Ernie to sit with you on your lap, then...hi Dottie, I love you too, can’t wait to see you, can you give mom the phone back?...Hey Dais, I need to talk to mom--yes, I love you too, can you--Hi, Dan, yes,” and on and on and on and it’s so funny to Harry until it hits him that he’ll be meeting Louis’ family today. 

He’ll be meeting the parents and won’t even be introduced as the boyfriend. 

When they get off the train they’re running late so Louis gives him a brief kiss on the cheek and then takes off. It’s only when Harry’s lost sight of him that he realizes he still has Louis’ cap in hand. 

“Louis, your cap!” Harry yells, rushing through the crowd to try and find where Louis’d gone. Fuck, he’s probably already lost to Harry, inside somewhere. Will they even let him walk without it? Harry’s spinning around, trying to find the entrance to where the graduates wait, when he bumps into someone. 

“Whoa, there, kid.” 

He turns around to see Wilson Fisk. People are filtering around them like water around a rock, cocooning them into their own little bubble. 

“Mr. Styles, good to see you again.” He says, smiling. The smile isn’t genuine or warm. “How’s the job coming along?”

“Mr. Fisk. I’m sorry I haven’t been incredibly forthcoming on anything. I’ve been trying to get closer pictures of them anytime they’re out but I think they’ve caught on to me recently.” Harry tries to get out. It’s not like he’s lying; he tries to take close ups of Super Squad but he also told Liam to come up with something so the close ups would be useless. Liam developed a kind of blurring cloaking device that makes pretty much any range photograph of any of the members unusable. 

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” he says, laying a hand on Harry’s shoulder. It spans the whole length, neck to where his arm begins, and Harry tries not to feel crushed under the weight. “Better get that to your friend.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

As Fisk walks off he miraculously sees Zayn across the room and dashes over to him. 

“Fisk is here.” He breathes out, handing off the penis-covered cap to Zayn. Zayn looks down at it and chuckles. 

“Louis’, I’m assuming?” He asks, bringing up the cap closer for inspection. “God, how do you guys even come up with this shit?”

“Zayn, are you listening to me?” 

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I mean, Fisk gives some big speech every graduation. He’s NYU’s biggest sponsor, but I’m sure you knew that.”

And Zayn says it like it’s the most inconsequential thing, like it doesn’t matter that the most powerful and dangerous person in this city is here. 

“Zayn, he wants y’alls heads on a  _ pike _ on the Empire State building.” 

Zayn stares at him a moment, and then says, “And he’ll continue wanting it tomorrow. I’ll take this to Louis. Thanks.” and walks off into the crowd. 

There’s not enough room in the auditorium for all friends and family so anyone without a paid ticket has to stand either outside the building and wait or get to watch the processions on some televisions in the lobby, so Harry just parks himself right where he’s at so he can see whatever shit show might occur. 

For the entire duration ceremony Harry’s annoyed. He watches Fisk make some grandiose speech about how much NYU has done for the city, blah blah blah, there’s a round of applause. The valedictorian makes a speech thanking Fisk for all he’s done for the city, everybody claps. The president of the school makes a speech thanking Fisk for all the donations he’s given over the years and for sponsoring over half of the school’s scholarships and the woman sitting next to Harry bursts into tears, saying to her friend that Wilson Fisk is the only reason she got to attend school and now her cousin is graduating on scholarship as well. 

He’s really made the entire city dependent on him, made it so it couldn’t function without him. 

They begin calling out names when the speeches are over and it takes fucking forever but Harry cheers loudly whenever one of his friends walks across the stage, and, he’ll admit it, he tears up a bit when he sees Louis handed a diploma. There’s another speech about the future and how hopeful it is or something and everyone throws their caps in the air, cheering. 

Surprisingly, nothing happened the entire ceremony. It all went flawlessly. Nobody tripped, nobody did any weird pranks, nothing. Maybe he was just being paranoid. 

As everyone begins making their way out of the building Harry shoves himself into a corner to wait out the crowds. Louis is surely inside visiting with his family, so he’ll wait for them whenever they’re done. He texts Zayn and the rest of the boys a congratulations tweet, receiving a thumbs up back from Liam and nobody else, but that’s fine. They need their time to celebrate properly. 

After thirty minutes of standing in the corner, most of the space is cleared out, thankfully, and Harry gets a text from Louis telling him to meet him outside. 

Harry takes a deep breath. Time to meet the family now. 

They’re out on the sidewalk, all nine of them. 

“Hey, H.” Louis’ beaming and Harry can’t help but to match it when he sees him. Louis’ still wearing the cap and gown, all zippered up this time, and Harry can’t resist pulling his camera out of his bag. “Harry, this is family, family, this is Harry.”

“Please to meet y’all. Louis, hold still, I didn’t get a picture of you before.” 

“Come on, Harry, I’ve got loads of pictures today--”

“Just one?” Harry pouts and he sees the moment Louis gives in. It wasn’t even much of a fight. He snags the photo and then motions to the rest of the family. “Let’s get one with all y’all together.” 

“Are you a photographer, Harry?” One of Louis’s sisters asks. He’s pretty sure it’s Charlotte, since Louis said she dyes her hair a lot and it’s currently a neon peach. 

“Yeah.” He takes a few photos, making sure everyone’s in the shot and the lighting is okay. It’s a sunny day out with a few scattered clouds, thankfully. “I work for the SCLU at the  _ Daily Bugle _ .”

“Wow,” Jay says, eyes wide. “That’s impressive.” 

“Mom, you don’t have to act surprised, I talk about Harry’s job all the time to you.” Louis says and Jay sticks her tongue out at him. 

“I’m just trying to be polite. Anyway, Harry, we’re going to Central Park for some Wafel and Dinges, would you care to join?” 

Harry’s sure he’s bright red but he nods anyways. 

“I’d love to, ma’am, thank you.” 

Jay pitters, swinging her hand back and forth. “You can call me Jay, all the rest of Louis’ friends do.”

The rest of the family walks on, leaving Louis and Harry in the back of the group. 

“You talk to your mom about me?” Harry says, but apparently not quietly enough because one of the older twins says, 

“God, he never shuts up about you.” 

His whole body feels warm. He feels happy. 

“Daisy!” Jay scolds from the front of the pack. “What have we said about embarrassing your brother today?”

“Oh my God,” Louis mutters under his breath.

* * *

 

Wafel and Dinges ends up amazing, as always. Jay is awed by Harry’s reusable cutlery pack and vows to make some up when she gets home for everyone, which makes Harry feel like he’s contributed something. The Deakin-Tomlinson clan end up leaving just before sundown, catching the train back to their parking garage to go back upstate. They’ve got a long travel time ahead of them but he and Louis are alone again. 

“Wanna take a walk through the park?” Louis asks, motioning with his head. 

“I’d love to.”

They spend a long time wandering, Harry taking picture after picture of Central Park nightlife. They end up by the zoo, heading inside to check out some of the animals, but they don’t stay for very long, so they trek back around and head towards the Ramble. They talk about all kinds of things, trading funny family stories, Louis talking about how his paid study starts at the end of August and how he’s grateful for one final summer break, even if he will have to keep working at the Coffee Bean for the duration. 

“So, I’ll probably do my master’s in a couple of years, and -- ow, what the fuck!” Louis yells, shaking his right hand. Something bright blue and glowing falls to the ground and lays there and they both just stare at it. “Is that a glowing blue spider?” 

They bend down, staring harder. 

“I think so.”

“I just got bit by a glowing blue spider.” Louis’ voice is tight, unwavering, but his body is beginning to shake. “Harry, what if--”

“Hey, hey, hey, none of that.” Harry soothes. “I think it’s dead, anyways, but let’s wrap it up and take it and you to a hospital and get checked out.”

“Harry-”

“Louis. We’ll take you to a hospital and see what happens.”

* * *

 

“You got bit...by this?” The nurse says, skeptical. She’s got the spider on a dish, belly up, and she pokes it with a probe. “Can I see your hand again, sweetie?”

Louis offers her his right hand, where the bite is bright red and looks irritated. There are two clear punctures. 

“That’s certainly a spider bite but I’m not convinced about the spider you brought in. I’ll get a sample of the skin around the bite, take a blood sample, and run some tests. One of the other nurses here has an arachnid collection and I’ll take the spider to her and see what she says, okay?” 

She takes her samples and off she goes. 

“Harry, what if something happens to me?” Louis shaking at this point. They’ve been here for two hours already, just waiting to be seen, and they’re tired and nervous. 

“If it was deadly I think you’d already be showing symptoms by now.”

“No, Harry, like--it was glowing  _ blue _ . What if something  _ happens _ to me?”

The doctor walks in before Harry can even think of a response. 

“It doesn’t seem like anything will be altered, if that’s what you’re talking about, Mr. Tomlinson.” She says. “I’m Dr. Rathbone. Your skin test showed up negative, but blood tests take a while to turn up anything. Your nurse showed the spider to one of her colleagues who thinks it’s a common species of spider belonging to...I think she said Malaysia? But that it’s not harmful. Strange that one’s out here, but it could’ve just been someone’s escaped pet. It won’t harm you at all.”

“Did you hear the part where it was glowing blue, doctor?” Louis bites back. 

“It was probably just a trick of the light, Mr. Tomlinson. I’d suggest you go home, get some rest. We’ll be calling you in a few days with the results of your blood test.”

* * *

 

“I don’t wanna change.” 

Louis’ been laying down in silence in the bed, Harry holding him as close as possible. Harry’s been trying to comfort him, trying to console him, but it’s a futile effort. Louis is convinced of his imminent change. 

“Louis, I’m gonna be right here, baby. I’m right here with you.” 

“Can you fuck me?” 

Harry jerks back with the sudden request, turning to look back into Louis’ determined eyes. 

“I just want one last night, Harry, please. Please, fuck me.” 

“Louis, you’re freaking out, I’m not going to--”

“Please. For me. This is going to be my last night as a human.”

Harry’s a weak man. Anything Louis wants from him he wants to give, including this, including fucking him when he’s so frightened he couldn’t possibly be making any good decisions for his own health and safety. 

“It is not, stop being dramatic--”

“Harry.”

Harry’s a weak man. Louis looking up at him like that, asking him so blatantly, is breaking his heart. 

“I don’t have any condoms here.”

Harry’s a weak man. He’s grasping at straws. Louis’ hands are slowly traveling down Harry’s chest down to his belt, undoing it slowly. 

“I don’t care.”

Harry’s a weak man. He gives in. 

He reaches over to the bedside table, grabbing the lube out and laying it out on the pillow beside Louis’ head. He’s almost out of lube, too, so they’ll definitely have to restock within the next few days. He leans down and kisses Louis square on the mouth, taking his time, making sure that Louis is going to be taken care of. 

He slowly, slowly, slowly helps Louis out of his clothes, leaving him naked on Harry’s bed. The window behind them lets the lights of the city in, leaving him golden in the night. He presses kisses down his stomach, down his thighs, licks around the triangle tattoo on his ankle. 

“Harry…” Louis breathes out when Harry strokes down Louis’ thighs towards his ass, running his fingers over his hole. It flutters and Harry starts to get hard, just by seeing that, imagining it open and wide. Harry lubes up his fingers and presses them in, one by one by one, until Louis is panting and ready. He slides in, inch by inch, slowly slowly, and when he gets to come inside of Louis it’s like he’s ascended to heaven, like all of his sins will be forgiven. 

* * *

Louis, to his credit, turns out to be right.

**Author's Note:**

> again, part 2 will be up when i have time, idk when that'll be. sorry to the mods and readers, i expected being able to finish the entire fic and just couldn't. i've been working on this fic for four years and wasn't satisfied with poor quality on part 2 so i'm just taking my time with it. again, you can subscribe to me here or on tumblr for updates on the sequel !!
> 
> you can reblog the post [here](https://skyebyrd.tumblr.com/post/183683122312) to spread the fic and yell at me to finish part 2 [here](https://skyebyrd.tumblr.com/ask) :)
> 
> please leave questions/comments !! this fic is my BABY of four years so i'd love to hear feedback :) and please leave feedback on the INCREDIBLE art !!! ri deleted her blog so i wanna make sure she sees people loving the art she made as much as i love it.


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